Tornado kills 15, injures 46 in Anhui
By Liu Weifeng in Beijing and Zheng Caixiong in Guangzhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-08-01 05:28

A freak tornado hammered Lingbi County in East China's Anhui Province on Saturday, killing 15 people and leaving 46 injured, local officials reported.

Hu Huiyuan, chief of the disaster-relief division of Suzhou Civil Affairs Bureau, said that most of the dead had been trapped under collapsed roofs as a result of the tornado. Lingbi County is under jurisdiction of the city of Suzhou.

The tornado lasted for about half an hour, with winds of over 120 kilometres per hour overturning vehicles and uprooting trees.

"Traditionally tornadoes are a rare occurrence in Lingbi County," Hu told China Daily.

Lingbi local government has allocated 100,000 yuan (US$12,346) for relief work. However, the amount is far short of offsetting the total economic loss of 40 million yuan (US$ 4.9 million), he added.

Meanwhile, a tropical storm slammed into South China's Guangdong Province yesterday morning, causing widespread economic damage, and wrecking traffic operations around Leizhou Peninsula in west Guangdong.

More than 3,000 passengers were stranded in Xuwen County in the southern tip of the Leizhou Peninsula, when the ferry service across the Qiongzhou Straits was suspended because of the disaster, which started Saturday evening.

Affected by the storm, the Guangzhou-Haikou railway service, which uses special railway ferries to transport train cars across the Qiongzhou Straits, also had to be stopped temporarily, resuming later in the day.

The storm, the eighth to hit the Chinese coast this year, also caused big economic losses in the cities of Zhanjiang, Maoming and Yangjiang in western Guangdong.

The storm also affected cities in the Pearl River Delta, including Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province. The city was hit by heavy rainfall, causing many streets in the down town area to be flooded. A car driver was killed after his car collided with a public bus on Zhongshanyi Road overpass yesterday morning.

In a related development, one person was killed and four are still missing in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province after a storm caused a mudslide in Ziyang County.

Heavy rain deluged Ziyang on Wednesday and Thursday, resulting in several mountain torrents, mudslides and landslides.

Rainstorms also caused troubles elsewhere in the country.

In Xinmi, a tourist attraction in Central China's Henan Province, two tourists are still missing after being swept away as a result of landslides during heavy rain on Friday.

A 10-member tourist team became stranded at the scenic spot in Xinmi by the unexpected rainfall. Eight were rescued by local police.

Some 50,000 residents in Hegang and Yichun in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province were also affected by heavy rainstorms. It is estimated that the direct economic loss is 360 million yuan (US$44.4 million).

However, drought is plaguing Southwest China's Guizhou and Central China's Hunan provinces, leaving nearly 2 million people facing drinking water shortages.

(China Daily 08/01/2005 page2)

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