July 7, 2008
A small tornado-like wind struck Beijing’s suburban Shunyi County on Friday July 4. A poultry farm suffered heavy losses with about eighty thousand of its ducks killed when their pen collapsed. The big image on the front page shows the devastated poultry farm.
The farm is a main supplier to Beijing’s well-known Peking duck chain Quanjude. It is not yet clear if this incident will have any effect on the price of Beijing famous roast duck.
According to Liu Chengzhi, manager of the farm, the twister struck on July 4 at around 6:10pm during a rain storm.
“It was a black one, as big as ten village houses. Trees were ripped out from their roots” recalled Liu. According to him, about 100 acres of duck pens collapsed. The estimated losses are about 3 million yuan.
The farm has since taken measures include sterilization to prevent a possible poultry epidemic break-out.
“Luckily 12,000 breeding ducks were in another place and survived” said the manager, “so there is hope that we will restore the farm in a month.”
- The Beijing News: Eighty thousand ducks killed by “Black Whirling Wind”