River bottoms reduced to cracked earth attract the curious, some taking selfies on the sun-baked expanse exposed by the receding waters. Farmers lament their yellowed rice stalks, their famed hot pepper plants bereft of almost all fruit, their dry reservoirs.
The very landscape of Chongqing, a megacity that also takes in surrounding farmland and steep and picturesque mountains, has been transformed by an unusually long and intense heat wave and an accompanying drought.
