Photo:CFP

A total of 12 people were killed Friday night in two tornados in Wuhan in central China and Suzhou in East China.

A tornado hit Shengze town of Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province, on Friday night at around 7 pm, leaving four dead and 149 slightly wounded, according to the local media reports on Saturday.

With a maximum wind force of 202 to 220 kilometers per hour, the tornado is rated at EF3 based on preliminary estimates.

Also on Friday night, another tornado passed through two districts of Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province, killing eight people and injuring 280, the city's emergency management bureau said on Saturday.

The Category 9 tornado occurred at 8:39 pm on Friday, with wind speed reaching 23.9 meters per second.

By 4 am on Saturday, the extreme weather had caused the collapse of 85 houses, with 400 houses, two tower cranes and 8,000 square meters of temporary shelters damaged.

Cao Guangjing, vice governor of Hubei, and Cheng Yongwen, Wuhan's city mayor, went to the scene to oversee the disaster relief work and held a meeting overnight to deploy emergency response work.

On Saturday, extreme weather such as heavy rainfalls, strong winds, thunder and lightning as well as hailstorms also affected some sections of the railway lines under the Wuhan railway bureau, which are now operating at a restricted speed.

As of 2:15 pm on Saturday, a total of 87 flights were delayed and 123 cancelled at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport due to bad weather conditions.

The National Meteorological Centre continued to issue a blue rainstorm warning at 10 am on Saturday as heavy rainfall is expected to occur in many parts of the country till 2 pm on Sunday.

Global Times