Ministry says natural disasters in April caused seven deaths

Natural disasters across the country caused seven deaths and total direct economic losses of over 5.4 billion yuan ($780 million) last month, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

Most of the casualties were caused by severe convective weather, the ministry said in a media release on Tuesday.

Severe convective weather refers to sudden, very destructive weather phenomena that often include thunderstorms, hail, gales and heavy rain.

Small in size and sometimes only spanning 10 kilometers, such events can produce intense precipitation.

Six severe convective weather events happened in the country last month, with 332 counties in 23 provincial-level regions affected, the ministry said, adding Hunan, Guizhou and Jiangxi provinces were among the worst hit.

Hailstorms in these events left five people dead, it noted, and the direct economic losses they caused stood at 1.6 billion yuan.

In April 2022, only two severe convective weather events occurred. The direct economic loss in the two events, however, was roughly equivalent to this April.

The release noted more sand and dust weather events this April than in the same period in normal years.

The country was stricken by six sand and dust weather events in the month, it said. Three of the events were so severe that they damaged many crops in North and Northwest China.

The ministry mentioned no such events in April last year in the natural disaster information it made public in May 2022.

It said four torrential rains in the past month made water levels in 32 rivers in the southern part of the country swell above their danger marks, affecting 523,000 people in 15 provincial regions. These downpours resulted in direct economic losses of 620 million yuan.

According to the ministry, the country saw 13 people dead or missing in natural disasters in April 2022. The direct economic losses they caused reached 2.8 billion yuan.