Two tornadoes left at least 10 dead and more than 300 injured after passing through central and eastern China, local authorities said on Saturday (May 15th).
Read also: Covid-19: the Wuhan P4 laboratory returns to the heart of the controversy
Strong winds at more than 100 km / h swept the metropolis of Wuhan, located in the center of the country and the cradle of the coronavirus pandemic, on Friday evening.
Six people were killed and more than 200 others were injured, authorities in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, said.
The squalls were such that two construction cranes were damaged, one of them collapsing on a construction site, causing extensive property damage.
Damaged vehicles and debris are pictured at a construction site after a tornado hit Wuhan in central China's Hubei province on May 15, 2021.
STR / AFP
In addition to vehicles damaged by falling objects, trees were uprooted, sheet metal sheds partly destroyed and electricity poles grounded, depriving more than 26,000 homes of electricity.
Nearly thirty homes collapsed, according to the Hubei authorities.
A factory under construction is damaged after a tornado devastated Caidian district in Wuhan, Hubei province, China on May 15, 2021. STRINGER / REUTERS
The city of Suzhou, near Shanghai, was also struck by a powerful tornado on Friday evening with winds exceeding 200 km / h, according to local authorities.
A report shows four dead and one missing, as well as 130 minor injuries.
Images posted on social networks showed a black vortex causing significant damage in its path.
At the beginning of May already, a violent storm accompanied by strong winds had killed 11 people in a city near Shanghai.