June 2016 – CHINA – Rescuers
in eastern China searched Friday for survivors of a tornado and
hailstorm that killed at least 98 people as it swept over a city’s
outskirts, destroying buildings, smashing trees and flipping vehicles on
their roofs. The tornado hit a densely populated area of farms and
factories Thursday near the city of Yancheng in Jiangsu province, about
800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Beijing. Jiangsu Governor Shi
Taifeng said Friday that the death toll had risen to 98 people, with 800
others injured, according to the official China News Service. Earlier,
the state-run Xinhua News Agency had said 200 people were critically
injured.
On Friday, rescuers worked to carry
injured villagers into ambulances and deliver food and water to others,
Xinhua reported, although state broadcaster CCTV said that roads were
blocked with trees, downed power lines and other debris. Heavy rain and
the possibility of further hailstorms and more tornadoes complicated
rescue efforts. In badly hit Xintu village, survivors grieved over lost
relatives and surveyed the damage wrought on their homes.
“The people inside tried to run
outside, but the wind was too strong so they couldn’t,” villager Wang
Shuqing told an Associated Press reporter. “My family members were all
inside, they all died. The police then came and took the bodies out, I
can’t bear it.” The disaster has been declared a national-level
emergency, and on a trip to Uzbekistan, Chinese President Xi Jinping
ordered central government bodies to provide all necessary assistance.
Tents and other emergency supplies were
being sent from Beijing, while schools and other facilities were used
to shelter survivors, CCTV said. The network showed people carrying the
injured to hospitals, cars and trucks lying upside down, street light
poles snapped in half, and steel electricity pylons crumpled and lying
on their side. Power and telephone communications were knocked out over a
broad area. I heard the gales and ran upstairs to shut the windows,”
Xinhua quoted Xie Litian, 62, as saying. “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. After sheltering in a corner for 20 minutes, he
emerged to find the neighborhood transformed into a wasteland. “It was
like the end of the world,” he said. Jiangsu is a coastal province north
of Shanghai. Yancheng is an ancient city with more than 8 million
people. The Jiangsu provincial fire and rescue service said on its
microblog that the storm was accompanied by hail. Crews were dispatched
to evacuate workers and secure chemicals and other potentially dangerous
items at a sprawling solar panel factory in a Yancheng suburb, it said.
No chemical leaks have been reported, CCTV said.
Photos showed a wrecked three-story
school with large trees strewn on its playing field. Its windows had
been blown out and its roof and upper floor torn off, along with those
of numerous other buildings. Bodies were shown lying in the open or
buried in rubble. At least one hog farm was hit, its livestock covered
in bricks and roofing material.
The reports said the tornado struck at
about 2:30 p.m. and hit Funing and Sheyang counties on the city’s
outskirts the hardest, with winds of up to 125 kph (78 mph). Tornados
occasionally strike southern China during the summer, but rarely with
the scale of death and damage caused by the one on Thursday. This year,
southern and eastern China have experienced weeks of torrential rain and
storms that have caused widespread flooding and dozens of casualties.
The southern part of the country is hit every year during the May-July
monsoon season, 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. –Indian Express
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