China’s National Development and Reform Commission has allocated, as a matter of urgency, 50 million yuan (about R$38 million) from the central government’s budget to Hubei province, where storms, hail and a tornado left 11 dead, one missing and 331 injured last Monday (6), according to the state agency China News Service.
The resources will mainly be used to rebuild damaged infrastructure, such as roads, schools and public service facilities, to accelerate the resumption of production and daily life in affected areas. In a statement, the commission stated that the measure complies with President Xi Jinping’s instructions on flood prevention and disaster relief.
The tornado formed in the south of Ezhou, crossed the Yangtze River and hit the Huangzhou district in the city of Huanggang on Monday night. The phenomenon was classified as EF2 on the scale that measures the intensity of tornadoes, which ranges from EF0 to EF5, with winds that exceeded 165 km/h, according to the Huanggang emergency command. Between 7pm and 11pm, 53 counties in southeastern Hubei recorded strong winds, with gusts of up to 145 km/h in Ezhou, according to the provincial meteorological service.
In Ezhou, five people died, according to the agency Xinhua. In Huanggang, the local command confirmed four deaths and accounts for 178 people hospitalized, five of them in serious condition, and a loss estimated at 450 million yuan (R$342 million).
As of Tuesday morning (7), the storms had affected 14,600 people in four cities, according to the provincial government, with around 996 people evacuated. Teams from the Huanggang Fire Department rescued 28 people trapped in rubble, and more than 9,500 rescuers were mobilized in the first 24 hours after the disaster, according to the newspaper Hubei Diary.
Uncommon
China records an average of 38 tornadoes per year, concentrated in the country’s eastern plains: the middle-lower Yangtze, where eastern Hubei is located, the Pearl River Delta and the northern and northeastern plains, according to the National Climate Center. Within this range, however, the frequency is concentrated in Jiangsu and northern Anhui, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
In Hubei, the phenomenon is considered rare by the provincial meteorological service: Huanggang has recorded 11 tornadoes in around a hundred years, and the previous case in the province had been in May 2021, in the Caidian district, in the capital Wuhan.
The chief expert at the Hubei Meteorological Department, Wang Xiaoling, explained that the tornado resulted from the collision between the remnants of Typhoon Maysak and the Meiyu front (or “plum rains”), a persistent rain system typical of early summer in East Asia.
Damage assessment is ongoing, according to the provincial government.
Source: www.brasildefato.com.br