Wild weather kills 24 in South China

Tornado, hail, thunderstorms cause more than $210m in economic losses

At least 24 people have died and four are missing after extreme weather hit five provinces in South China this week, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Thursday.

Starting on Tuesday, tornados, rain and strong winds swept Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong and Guizhou provinces, and about 215,000 people evacuated for their safety, according to a notice released on the ministry's website.

By 12 am on Thursday, 1.53 million people had been affected by the disastrous weather conditions.

More than 2,000 residential buildings collapsed, and 248,000 houses were damaged. About 92,900 hectares of crops were damaged, and the crops on 16,400 hectares were destroyed, it said.

The economic loss is estimated at 1.31 billion yuan ($210 million).

A super tornado, accompanied by thunderstorms and hailstones, hit several townships and subdistricts in Dongguan, Guangdong, on Wednesday afternoon, killing nine people by 10 am on Thursday.

The storm also left 272 people injured, 11 of them seriously, said Deng Haoquan, secretary-general of the city government at a news conference on Thursday.

Force 8 winds swept townships, and one gust in Dalingshan township measured force 14, 49.1 meters per second.

Buildings struggled to withstand the force of the tornado, the strongest ever recorded in the city, Deng said.

Many houses, stores and factories collapsed or were damaged in Dongguan, and cars and trucks were overturned.

Five students at the Oriental Pearl School in Shatian township were injured by broken glass. The roofs of several buildings in the school were blown apart, and trees and electricity poles uprooted, cutting off the power supply.

More than 4,000 students will stay at home until the repairs are finished, said Su Chao, executive vice-president of the school.

A refrigerator blown from a store narrowly missed a car in Shatian, Information Times reported.

"I was driving the car when a strong wind suddenly started blowing. Tree branches and metal plates were flying around. Then I saw a big block moving toward my car. I stopped the car, opened the window and realized it was a refrigerator," the driver was quoted as saying.