24 killed in China thunderstorm

At least 24 people were killed and four others missing after thunderstorm hit parts of southern China in the last two days, the authorities said today.
A total of 1.53 million residents from the provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong and Guizhou have been affected by severe weather conditions including thunder, gales and hail storms and 215,000 people have been forced to relocate, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement.
Twenty-four people have been killed and another four are missing due to natural disasters since Tuesday, the statement said.
The disasters have caused direct economic losses of 1.31 billion yuan (USD 210.7 million) with about 248,000 homes damaged and 92,900 hectares of farmland affected, it said.

State-run CCTV reported heavy hail storm damaged cars and injured many people.