Emergency personnel in China mounted rescue efforts amid scenes of carnage Friday as the toll from hurricane-force winds and a tornado rose to at least 98 dead, with hundreds more injured.
Reports said more than 360 rescuers were deployed at the factory, where two employees of the firm, which is based in West Guelph, Ontario, were missing.
Workers and People's Liberation Army soldiers were removing fallen high voltage electricity poles around the factory, where buildings had been stripped of their roofs by the storm and their windows blown out.
Funing resident Sun Yazhou was driving a concrete mixer truck when a tornado passed him, tearing the glass out of his vehicle windows.
Rubble spilt over into the river that meanders through the town.
In Funing County, one of the hardest-hit areas, residents shifted through the fallen bricks and pillars of their destroyed homes, many with their roofs torn off and walls crumbled.
President Xi Jinping ordered all-out rescue efforts' after what Xinhua said was one of the worst disasters ever to hit Jiangsu, including the worst tornado to hit China in half a century.
So far 98 people have been confirmed dead and about 800 injured.
Whole villages were levelled and huge trees felled when winds of up to 125 kilometres (77 miles) per hour struck around Yancheng city in the eastern province of Jiangsu.
More than 1,300 police officers had been mobilised to help.
