Laying the waste to the area, the powerful tornado named Monster tornado ripped through the Kaiyuan City, north-east China’s Liaoning province on Wednesday. The ferocious disaster hit the city at around 5.15pm local time (9.15am BST). According to the reports, on top of the six deaths, a further 190 people were injured.
Rare tornado strikes China’s Kaiyuan City
Various videos can be seen showing the tornado shattering windows, tearing-off and collapsing the buildings, uprooting trees and inverting over cars. AccuWeather Meteorologist Jim Andrews said, “It [Kaiyuan] is a flat area at the latitude of our Tornado Alley.” According to Andrews, while tornadoes in this area aren’t rare, they aren’t common either.
He further added, “Northeast China can and does get occasional major tornadoes, although my understanding is that it falls far short of the twister density of our tornado belt.”
Moreover, Andrews told that several conditions are required to be just right for the development of a tornado and conditions were optimal in this area. Andrews said, “From what I can tell, the weather map Wednesday showed a stalled front nearby with temperature in the mid-80s F, dewpoints in the 60s F; all in all, favorable for thunderstorms.”
Meanwhile, after the incident, Kaiyuan city issued a grade-II emergency response immediately. The shocking twister reached speeds of 50mph as it tore through the city. According to local reports, 210 people were rescued from the city. The city government confirmed that it was still assessing the damage done to the area. The rescue mission is currently underway
This Wednesday’s tornado comes after another twister devastated Taipei on Monday. Fortunately, only two people were hurt but more than 7,000 households were left without power. Although it only lasted for 15 minutes, the disaster wreaked havoc to department buildings and turned over cars.
Three years ago, a deadly tornado and hailstorm killed 98 people in the Chinese province of Jiangsu. The horrific disaster also injured a further 800 people as it destroyed the area. Accompanied by torrential rain, the tornado hit the outskirts of the city Yancheng. Such was the power of the twister that it 78mph.
