Tornado, hail storms kill at least 51 in east China

At least 78 people were killed and over 500 inured in heavy rains as extreme weather wrecked havoc in east China’s Jiangsu province, the government said today.

Official news agency Xinhua reports that a tornado accompanied by torrential rain and hailstorms hit the province of Jiangsu on Thursday afternoon.

Power and communications are down in some areas, with rescue teams rushing emergency supplies – including some 1,000 tents – to the scene. “I had hardly reached the top of the stairs when I heard a boom and saw the entire wall with the windows on it torn away”.

The roof then collapsed as he raced downstairs, Xie said.

Saying that all the other houses in her neighbourhood had been destroyed, she added: “It was like the end of the world”.

It said the extreme weather was reported in several townships of Funing and Sheyang counties in the suburbs of Yancheng. No chemical leaks been reported, CCTV said. About 200,000 residents from eight southern provinces and regions, including Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Zhejiang and Anhui, had been forced to evacuate this week, Reuters reported, citing China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs.

One photograph showed a wrecked three-storey schoolhouse with fallen trees strewn across its playing field.

Floods in central China killed 22 people and displaced almost 200,000, state media said.