Tornado and hail storms kill at least 51 in eastern China

A tornado and hail storms killed at least 51 people on Thursday in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, state media said.

The storms brought down power lines and houses, Xinhua news agency said.

“Downpours, hail storms and a tornado battered parts of Yancheng city . . . causing many houses to topple,” it said.

Photographs posted by media online showed injured people lying amid overturned houses and cars, split tree trunks and broken power lines as well as a wrecked three-storey schoolhouse with large trees strewn on its playing field

CCTV footage showed people carrying the injured to hospitals, cars and trucks flipped over on their roofs, street light poles snapped in half, and steel electricity pylons crumpled and lying on their side.

The Jiangsu provincial fire and rescue service provided no word on casualties but said on its microblog that the storm was accompanied by hail.

The southern part of the country is hit every year during the monsoon season of May, June and July, but this rainy season has been particularly wet. Water levels in some major rivers have exceeded those of 1998, when

China was hit by disastrous floods that affected 180 million people, according to state media reports.

Severe floods in southern China killed at least 22 people and left 20 missing earlier this week.

– (Reuters)