People drive past a damaged building after a tornado hit Guangzhou, in southern China's Guangdong province. AFP

At least five people were killed and 33 injured after a tornado struck the Chinese city of Guangzhou on Saturday, state media reported.

China's official Xinhua news agency said that the tornado hit the Guangdong Province capital, in the country's south, around 3 pm (0700 GMT).

The extreme weather was the latest to hit the country's industrial heartland. Guangdong, China's most populous province, is home to 127 million people and thousands of factories that power the nation's export sector.

Some 141 factories were damaged, though no houses had collapsed, Xinhua reported.

Images published by state media showed dark skies in the middle of the day.

Social media images showed damaged cars and uprooted trees.

Earlier this week, torrential rains in Guangdong caused serious flooding, leaving four dead.

The tornado hits the city's Baiyun district at about 15:30 CST on Saturday.

According to state media, it was the worst flooding some parts of the province had seen since the 1950s.

tornados are not unusual in China.

In September, 10 people were killed after a tornado struck Suqian, Jiangsu Province, in the country's east.

In 2021, two tornadoes struck the country in one day, killing 12, including eight in Wuhan.

Later, residents began sifting through the rubble Saturday after a tornado plowed through suburban Omaha, Nebraska, demolishing homes and businesses as it moved for miles through farmland and into subdivisions, then slamming an Iowa town.

Dozens of reported tornadoes wreaked havoc Friday in the Midwest, causing a building to collapse with dozens of people inside and destroying and damaging at least 150 homes in Omaha alone.

But no fatalities were reported, and fewer than two dozen people were treated at Omaha-area hospitals, said Dr. Lindsay Huse, health director of the city's Douglas County Health Department.

"Miraculous” she said, stressing that none of the city's injuries were serious. Neighboring communities reported a handful of injuries each.

The tornado damage started Friday afternoon near Lincoln, Nebraska. An industrial building in Lancaster County was hit, causing it to collapse with 70 people inside. Several were trapped, but everyone was evacuated, and the three injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said.

Preliminary assessment has indicated that the intensity of the tornado that struck Guangzhou on Saturday.

One or possibly two tornadoes then spent around an hour creeping toward Omaha, leaving behind damage consistent with an EF3 twister, with winds of 135 to 165 mph, said Chris Franks, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service's Omaha office.

Ultimately the twister slammed into the Elkhorn neighborhood in western Omaha, a city of 485,000 people with a metropolitan-area population of about 1 million.

"We barely made it to the basement and then we heard the destruction going on upstairs,” said James Stennis, who moved to the Elkhorn neighbourhood about a year ago. "Wow!”

Firefighters worked into the evening to make sure no one was trapped. By Saturday morning, the sounds of chainsaws filled the air there. Lumber from the damaged homes lay in piles. Fences were knocked over, and the trees were skeletal, missing most of their branches.

Staci Roe surveyed the damage to what was supposed to be her "forever home,” which was not even two years old. When the tornado hit, they were at the airport picking up a friend who was supposed to spend the night.

"There was no home to come to,” she said, describing "utter dread” when she saw it for the first time.

Power outages peaked at 10,000, but they had dropped to 4,300 by morning.

Agencies