Seven people were killed and several hundred more injured in northern Jiangsu Province, east China, by torrential rains and hail and a hurricane on Tuesday night, local sources said.

The affected areas were Shuyang, Siyang, Huai'an and Xuzhou, with Shuyang County being the worst hit.

According to Sun Shujin, deputy head of the county, 825,000 people in his county were affected by the bad weather. 223 were injured and five were killed. Direct economic losses were placed at 1.2 billion yuan (US$145 million).

The hurricane toppled trees as it passed through, destroying 194,487 houses and damaging infrastructure for power, telecommunications and transport, and lead to power and communication failures and the temporary halt of transportation inmost areas of the county, said Sun.

Power supply, communications and transport have resumed thanks to the concerted repairing efforts of several organizations, said Sun.

The provincial government of Jiangsu has sent a team consisting of civil affairs officials to inspect the damages in the areas hit by the severe weather.

(Xinhua News Agency June 17, 2005)