At least six people were killed and 190 others were injured after a ferocious tornado tore through the city of Kaiyuan, north-east China’s Liaoning province on Wednesday, officials said.
Dramatic footage showed the tornado shattering windows, tearing roofs off of buildings, uprooting trees and flipping over cars.
The twister tore through the city around 5:45 p.m. local time and lasted for approximately 15 minutes, according to authorities and the Daily Mail.
“It [Kaiyuan] is flat area at the latitude of Tornado Alley of the United States,” AccuWeather Meteorologist Jim Andrews said.
While tornadoes in this area aren’t rare, Andrews said they aren’t common either.
“Northeast China can and does get occasional major tornadoes, although my understanding is that it falls far short of the twister density of the U.S. tornado belt,” Andrews said.
Several conditions are required to be just right for the development of a tornado, and according to Andrews, conditions were optimal.
“From what I can tell, the weather map Wednesday showed a stalled front nearby with temperature in the mid 80s Fahrenheit, dewpoints in the 60s) all in all, favorable for thunderstorms,” Andrews said.
