A violent tornado wreaked havoc in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu on Tuesday (September 19). It killed at least one person amid warnings against heavy rain and strong winds in several regions, local media reported.
The tornado was brief but fierce, with social media footage showing overturned cars, downed power lines and flying debris, much of which littered the streets of Suqian, a city in the north of the province.
According to broadcaster CCTV, one person died and three were injured, with 52 homes damaged.
The latest incident in weeks of destructive and deadly weather spurred authorities to call for vigilance against strong winds in coastal areas near the Yellow Sea off Jiangsu.
Meanwhile in Australia, citizens took advantage of the unseasonably hot spring conditions and headed to Bondi beach in Sydney on Wednesday (September 20), even as strong winds and the intense heatwave fanned dozens of bushfires across the country’s southeast.
Extreme fire danger warnings were in place for the greater Sydney region, home to more than 5 million people, as parts of Australia sweltered in an unusual five-day burst of spring heat, forecast to last until Wednesday.
Total fire bans are in place for large swathes of New South Wales, with Sydney on Wednesday set to post its fifth consecutive daytime maximum temperature of more than 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in September, a record. But a cold front from Thursday (September 21) will push temperatures down to the low 20s.
After three years of heavy rains and frequent flooding, Australia is bracing for a warm and dry southern hemisphere spring and summer in 2023. On Tuesday (September 19), Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology declared an El Nino weather pattern, typically associated with wildfires and droughts, was underway.
In other part of the world, Libya that faced heavy rainfall and flooding, scientists say, climate change made the heavy rainfall that led to deadly floods in Libya up to 50 times more likely.
he powerful September 10 storm caused two dams to break, inundating Libya’s eastern city of Derna and killing thousands of people.
But climate change caused up to 50 percent more rain during that period, according to scientists with World Weather Attribution, an international research collaboration that works to determine how much climate change plays a role in specific weather events.
The scientists warned that climate change pushes weather to new extremes.
(Inputs from Reuters)