Wang Shucheng, minister of water resources, issued the grim warning at a national conference for directors of water resources bureau in the eastern city of Suzhou, the Xinhua news agency said.

"Currently, 300 million Chinese people are drinking unsafe water, among which 190 million are drinking water with harmful substances above set standards," Wang said.

The Chinese government has allocated more than 18 billion yuanbillion US dollars) to build 800,000 drinking water projects in rural areas since 2000 and has set the lofty goal of providing safe drinking water to every rural family by 2020, although it has yet to work out how it will do so.

But many people in the countryside still lack safe drinking water, Zhai Haohui, vice-minister of water resources, was quoted as saying.

"More than 63 million peasants living in north, northwest, northeast and east China plains are drinking water with fluorine above set standard," he said.

Fluorine is a toxic chemical element.

In addition, 60 million people in 110 counties of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Yunan provinces are threatened by schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease, Zhai said.

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