A tornado, hail storms and driving rain killed at least 78 people and injured some 500 in eastern China on Thursday, flattening power lines, overturning cars and ripping roofs off houses in Jiangsu province.
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According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the death toll is expected to rise in the coming days as search and rescue units continue to look for more survivors and pull more bodies out of the rubble.
Almost 500 people were injured, 200 of them critically, and a number of homes were flattened.
The extreme weather struck on Thursday afternoon, battering Funing and Sheyang provinces and parts of Yancheng City, with sustained storm winds of 100-125 km/h. Crews were dispatched to evacuate workers and secure chemicals and other potentially risky items at a sprawling solar panel factory in the Yancheng suburb of Funing, it said.
Workers and People’s Liberation Army soldiers were removing fallen high voltage electricity poles around the factory, where buildings had been stripped of their roofs by the storm and their windows blown out. No chemical leaks been reported, CCTV said. Hundreds of people are thought to have been injured in the tornado, the worst to hit China in 50 years.
The disaster has been declared a national emergency, and Beijing has started sending tents and other emergency supplies to the affected province. Earlier this week floods in the south killed at least 22 people and left 20 missing.
Flooding is common during the summer monsoon season in southern China, but rainfall has been particularly heavy this year. “I had no idea what was happening”, said Guo. A factory where unsafe chemical products were stored has been destroyed. In the town of Lixin cars and houses were reportedly destroyed and trees uprooted.
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Many parts of China have been lashed by torrential rains this week as summer rainstorms have been heavier than usual, causing damage across the country.
