© XinhuaRescuers deliver food to residents trapped by rain-triggered flood in Lishui City, east China's Zhejiang Province, Aug. 20, 2014.
Nearly 65,000 people in east China's Zhejiang Province have been evacuated after torrential rains caused floods in some cities, said the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters on Thursday.
Nearly half a million people in the cities of Lishui, Jinhua, Wenzhou and Shaoxing have been affected by persistent downpours since Aug. 8, with the worst-hit Lishui suffering direct economic losses of 1.058 billion yuan, it said.
Statistics from the provincial hydrological bureau showed that the province's average precipitation has reached 204 millimeters over the past fortnight, the highest since 1951 excluding the influence of typhoons.
By Thursday, 853 houses have collapsed, while 26,100 hectares of croplands have been damaged, of which 1,400 hectares of crops were totally destructed. The losses inflicted upon cash crops were estimated at 160 million yuan.
Comment: To give you an idea how rare tornadoes are in Italy, four tornadoes in total were recorded in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, three were recorded in the 20th century, four were recorded between 2008, and 2012, four hit in 2013 alone, between 12 and 15 have hit so far this year... and now five have hit in one day!
Note the exponential rate of increase...