Three people died after typhoon-like winds pulled them out through their apartment windows in southern China, as extreme weather battered the region over the past week.

A total of seven people had died in Jiangxi province since the exceptionally strong winds began on Sunday, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday. More than 5,400 houses were damaged and 313,000 people affected, of whom about 1,600 had to be evacuated to safety, it added.

The Chinese meteorological authority issued an orange alert - the highest on its three-tier warning system – on Tuesday, the first since 2013, according to the state-run Global Times.

Four deaths and at least 10 injuries were reported in the provincial capital Nanchang, the hardest-hit city, when severe thunderstorms and heavy rains hit on Sunday, according to CCTV.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Holy shit… Can you imagine? That’s like an actual nightmare where suddenly you’re just falling to your death and you’re like “welp, this sucks. Gonna die now.”

    But it’s fucking real.

    • Goku@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I flew off my motorcycle once and thought exactly that thought.

      I had only had the bike for a few days at that point and I remember thinking in my head, “welp, this sucks. Gonna die now.” Along with, “wow, that small mistake is going to cost me my life.”

      Both terrifying thoughts.

      I’m still alive though, my left leg is all messed up, like having the left knee of a 80+ yr old at 36.

        • Goku@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I had no conception of throttle, I was on a gsxr 1000.

          The last clutch I used was a Honda civic. I was on a steep incline at a red light. If I were in my civic, I would have to give quite a bit of gas before letting off the clutch just to prevent from stalling. So I gave my bike a nice choke on the throttle before letting go of the clutch.

          The bike took off… Fast… And it surprised me and I tensed up. As I tensed up, my grip on the throttle became stronger and caused me to pull the throttle harder.

          I sped up really fast and hit the curb, went over the handle bars and flew several yards through the air and landed in a parking lot. There were bones sticking out of my leg and I was laying in a puddle of my own blood.

          Lucky for me the ambulance was across the street and they witnessed it happen. Otherwise I may not have survived.

          • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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            3 months ago

            This is why riders in my country are limited to 250cc until they leave their provisional license. I’ve nearly lost family members to bike accidents. One is just a larrikin - he was riding in shorts and lost a large chunk of his leg muscle to road rash. The other just had a car pull out at the wrong time and wound up in intensive care for weeks. Nothing he could’ve done, the guy just didn’t look. The driver dropped off a get well card for him, which apparently is rare for someone to do. He wasn’t a bad guy, just got careless for a sec and nearly killed someone.

          • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            I fell off a bicycle without a helmet and hit my head. Passed out, woke up in the emergency. Was like 20 years before I got on another bike.

      • saltesc@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I had the same thing on mine, low-siding off a mountain pass. Was airborne so long, I remember thinking of what to land on to try increase chances of living. Ended up with rotating over to my right ass to take impact away from spine and accept my legs crumpling everything else after that. And it worked!

        Right femur compounded out above the knee, just missed the femoral artery, and had muscle cut out because of the bone doing so much damage, but everything else stayed good. Added to my surgical metal collection and now my right leg is a bit shorter than the other which pisses my hips off, but pretty good considering. I’m sure a cane will be on the cards in a decade or so, which I think is kind of classy.

        • Goku@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Glad to hear you’re alive, sounds scary.

          Well I actually have a cane being delivered today from amazon lol.

          • saltesc@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Nice. There may have pain, but now you got style with a conversation starter.

            “What happened?”

            “Oh, I was more bad ass than most people a few years ago and this is what they give the Masters.”

  • FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    God damn, that’s awful. Pretty messed up that the people and companies that lied to us for over 50 years about climate change not only aren’t held accountable, but still getting richer and richer by actively making the problems worse. We’ll see more and more human beings lost as things continue to get worse (especially in places where the weather is unprecedented and aren’t built to withstand that kind of weather).

  • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
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    3 months ago

    What the hell? I thought that kind of shit only happened in like tornadoes and crap. To be literally pulled out of your apartment, what did you have the windows open or something?

  • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Well holy hell! That’s is really scary and hardcore. I can only imagine the windforce it must have taken…

    • cybersandwich@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      You don’t have to imagine. They said it was level 10-12 winds which is 55-83 mph. That’s a category 1 hurricane.

      And to be honest a cat 1 hurricane seems like it shouldnt be able to rip people out of their houses. I guess they are built different over there.

      • ickplant@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        We currently have winds of over 75 mph in Colorado. Driving was a nightmare, but I can’t imagine this pulling me out of a window of a building. Maybe there was a huge gust?

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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        3 months ago

        If you were going to look out the window to see the crazy storm, and you only opened the window just enough to lean out - which makes sense because of the wind and the rain - and you completely filled the window gap, then I could see it happening. Especially if the windows were near the corners where the flow would speed up and lower the pressure even more, and the wind happened to gust just at that moment, and you were high up where the winds would be stronger. It wouldn’t happen a lot - maybe something like three times in a city of millions of people, just to pull a number out of my arse.

        It just takes a moment of bad luck, especially if you weren’t holding onto anything.

        • can@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Among them were a woman in her 60s and her 11-year-old grandson, yanked from their apartment windows by strong wind together with their mattresses, according to CCTV citing media reports

          Mattress was taking a peak too I guess.

          • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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            3 months ago

            Oh wow, I guess not then. That only makes sense if the windows broke suddenly, which fits with the fact the other victim was in the same complex. They also say air-conditioners were blown off.

            That’s terrifying because there really wouldn’t be any warning.