China News Agency, Guangzhou, June 17th: Tornado hits Conghua, Guangzhou: subway outage, street power outage, tree collapse
China News Agency reporter Wang Jian
Some subway stations were out of service, and power supply was interrupted in many villages... On the evening of June 16, Taiping Town, Conghua District, Guangzhou City was completely dark, and the roads were full of trees and debris blown down by strong winds. Many scaffolding structures The building was lifted off the roof.
According to the Guangdong Meteorological Bureau, a tornado occurred in the town at 19:00 on the 16th, and the whole process lasted about 3 minutes. The Taiping No. 2 Middle Weather Station, which was about 700 meters away from the tornado, recorded a gust of level 6 (12.6m/s).
"This tornado came very suddenly, urgent and violent. Although it only appeared for a few minutes, the light poles on the roadside and the trees on the sidewalk were blown down a lot." Mr. Li, a villager in Taiping Village, Taiping Town, told reporters, The Taiping Development Zone and Taiping Village were completely dark after the tornado hit that night, and traces of the tornado could be seen everywhere. The iron canopy in his yard was also blown over.
The reporter learned from the Guangzhou Municipal Emergency Management Bureau that the tornado caused power outages in some areas of Taiping Town, collapsed temporary scaffolding, damaged green trees and blocked traffic, mainly involving Taiping Development Zone, Taiping Village, and Taiping Town along Jiangxi Road. No casualties were found.
Taiping Hospital was one of the places worst affected by the tornado that night.
According to the security guard of the hospital, the street where the hospital was located suffered a power outage because the transformer was damaged by the tornado.
According to the Guangzhou Power Supply Bureau, as of 21:30 on the 16th, more than 5,400 users were affected by electricity, mainly in Qudong Village, Shuinan Village, Taiping Village and other areas.
Conghua Power Supply Bureau started a first-level emergency response, and made every effort to organize forces to carry out fault inspection and emergency repair work.
The tornado also affected Line 14 of the Guangzhou Metro.
According to the introduction of Guangzhou Metro, at around 19:30 that day, foreign objects were suspected to have fallen from the outside due to strong winds on the track between Xinhe Station and Taiping Station of Line 14. Due to the large size of the foreign objects, power outages were required. To ensure safety, the company Immediately activate emergency response and adjust train operation.
Until about 20:56, the foreign objects were disposed of, and the entire line of Line 14 gradually resumed normal traffic.
According to the Guangdong Meteorological Bureau, Guangdong is one of the most frequent areas for tornadoes in China. Tornadoes, as a kind of highly destructive strong convective weather, are a small-scale air vortex generated under strong unstable weather conditions. Up to 50 meters to 150 meters per second, the diameter is generally between several meters to hundreds of meters.
Tornadoes form and disappear quickly, often accompanied by strong convective weather systems such as thunderstorms, hail and heavy rain, and are extremely destructive.
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