Back-to-back tornadoes kill 12 in China; over 300 injured

Back-to-back tornadoes killed 12 people in central and eastern China and left more than 300 others injured, authorities said Saturday.

Eight people died in the inland city of Wuhan on Friday night and four others in the town of Shengze, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east in Jiangsu province, local governments said.

The first tornado struck Shengze about 7 p.m., damaging homes and factories and knocking out power, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The Suzhou city government, which oversees the town, said in a social media post that four people had died and 149 others had minor injuries. Shengze is near Shanghai on China's east coast.

Another tornado hit Wuhan at about 8:40 p.m. with winds of 86 kilometers (53 miles) per hour, destroying more than two dozen homes and triggering a power outage affecting 26,600 households, Xinhua said. Officials in Wuhan said at a news conference Saturday that eight had died and 230 were injured.

They said that 28 homes collapsed in Wuhan, another 130 were damaged and put economic losses at 37 million yuan ($5.7 million), the Hubei Daily newspaper said. Construction site sheds and two cranes were also damaged, while downed power lines knocked out electricity, Xinhua said.

Photos showed a swarm of rescuers searching through building debris in Wuhan after midnight Friday and workers clearing metallic debris at a factory in Shengze in the morning.

Wuhan is the city where COVID-19 was first detected in late 2019.

Tornados are rare in China. In July 2019, a tornado killed six people in the northeastern Liaoning province, and another tornado the following month killed eight on the southern resort island of Hainan.

In 2016, a tornado and accompanying hailstorm killed 98 people in the eastern Jiangsu province.

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Sri Lanka - Floods and Landslides Leave 3 Dead, 11,000 Affected

Sri Lanka's Disaster Management Centre (DMC) has reported further flooding and landslides in several parts of the country.

Further heavy rain has fallen in Sri Lanka since our report here. The Department of Meteorology reported 336 mm of rain fell in Agalawatta, Kalutara District in 24 hours to 14 May 2021.

Recent figures from DMC show that at least 3 people have died and more that 11,000 have been affected by recent floods, landslides and strong winds across the country over the last few days.

DMC said that 1 person died in a landslide on Warakapola, Kegalle and 2 people died in floods in Nagoda, Galle.

In Kegalle, a total of 1,132 people were affected by severe weather on 13 May, while flooding affected 1,115 people in the Colombo area, where 175 remain displaced.

As many as 6,119 people were affected by floods in in Gampaha where 85 homes were damaged. One person was injured in Aththanagalla

In Kurunegala, 366 people were affected by floods and in Matara a total of 2,806 people were affected, with 98 homes damaged.