Storms kill 30 in eastern China

Tornados and torrential rains killed at least 30 people as storms battered eastern China earlier this week, with millions more affected by flooding and other storm damage, state media and officials said today.

A tornado smashed through the town of Dafeng, in Jiangsu province, killing three people, the official newspaper China Daily reported.

A total of 27 people were reported dead in Jiangsu, west of Shanghai, and about 40,000 were evacuated, said Li Qiubao, an official of the Jiangsu Civil Affairs Bureau.

Newspapers showed residents using makeshift rafts to ferry through streets flooded chest-high. In total, more than 13 million people were affected by the storms, reports said.

From June 21-July 5, Jiangsu had four times the usual amount of rainfall, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing provincial meteorological officials. Weather forecasts were for continued heavy rains.

In neighbouring Anhui province, another three people were killed, said an official at the local Civil Affairs Bureau. Like many Chinese bureaucrats, he refused to give his name.

More than 40,000 people were displaced along the flood-prone Huai River, he said.

Earlier this week, the government reported that flooding, landslides and other weather-related disasters killed at least 349 people in China in June.

The official Xinhua News Agency said that another 99 people were still missing, while damage was estimated at 20 billion yuan (€1.8bn).

China suffers hundreds of rain deaths every summer. The impact of flooding has been worsened by heavy farming and tree-cutting that left cleared hillsides unable to trap rain. Major cities are shielded by flood dykes, but small towns, especially in mountainous areas, are vulnerable to deadly flash floods.

China is expected to suffer from more typhoons than usual this year due to an unusually warm current off its Pacific and high temperatures over the Tibetan plateau.