BEIJING - Water diverted from the Yangtze River in southern China has helped ease thirst in northern China for more than 80 million people, a senior official said Monday.

Water transported northwards from the Yangtze in the South-to-North Water Diversion Project has enabled 87 million people in Beijing, Tianjin and 33 cities in provinces including Hebei, Henan, Shandong and Jiangsu to get access to "southern water," said E Jingping, director of the Office of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Commission of the State Council.

The massive project also plays an important role in ecology, combating drought, flood drainage and improving water quality in northern regions, he said.

Monday marks the second anniversary of the start of water diversion through the middle route of the project, though the eastern route was put into use more than three years ago.

The water diversion project is designed to take water from the Yangtze, through eastern, middle and western routes to dry areas in the north.

For Shandong province alone, the project has supplied about 1.1 billion cubic meters of water over the past three years. Beijing and Tianjin have been supplied with 1.1 billion and 910 million cubic meters of water respectively, over the past year, data from the office showed.

The project was officially approved by the State Council in 2002, five decades after the late Chairman Mao Zedong proposed the idea.