The death toll from devastating storms in parts of China rose to 15 on Tuesday, with hundreds more injured and tens of thousands evacuated, state media reported, as President Xi Jinping urged “all out” rescue efforts.
At least 11 people were killed in China’s Hubei province after thunderstorms and powerful winds caused by severe convective weather swept across the eastern part of the province on Monday night, according to Xinhua, citing local emergency management authorities.
The storms affected the cities of Huangshi, Huanggang, Ezhou, and Xianning. Local authorities said some areas were also hit by tornadoes.
Three communities in Huanggang’s Huangzhou District were badly affected by the latest severe weather. Local authorities said the extreme weather destroyed 22 buildings and damaged another 4,855. It also injured 331 people. More than 400 residents have been evacuated to safer locations by local authorities.
The provincial government has launched full-scale rescue and relief operations and is working to prevent secondary disasters.
On Tuesday, authorities raised the flood warning to the highest-level red alert in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Neighboring Guangdong province also issued a red flood alert.
In Guangxi, four people were killed and about 55,000 others were affected after heavy rain caused flooding and breaches at several reservoirs in Nanning, the regional capital, on Monday.
A total of 48,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in the province. In a separate incident, a landslide buried 33 people in a village in northwestern Gansu province on Tuesday. At least 17 people were rescued.
President Xi Jinping has called for full efforts in flood rescue operations, disaster relief, and the resettlement of affected residents. The Chinese government has also allocated 160 million yuan ($23.5 million) in central disaster relief funds to support rescue and relief efforts in six provincial-level regions, according to state media.
