Chinese state media say 51 killed by powerful tornado

BEIJING  — A powerful tornado killed 51 people and destroyed large numbers of buildings Thursday in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, state media reported.

The tornado hit a densely populated area of farms and factories near the city of Yancheng, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV, other official media and the provincial rescue service.

They said large numbers of people were injured and roads were blocked with trees, downed power lines and other debris.

CCTV 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.

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 provided no word on casualties but said on its microblog that the storm was accompanied by hail. Crews were dispatched to secure chemicals and other potentially dangerous items at a sprawling solar panel factory in the Yancheng suburb of Funing, it said.

Photos posted online showed a wrecked three-story schoolhouse 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 around 2:30 p.m. and hit Funing and Sheyang counties on the city’s outskirts the hardest with winds of up to 125 kilometers per hour (78 mph).

Tornados occasionally strike southern China during the summer months, 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.