Tornadoes batter central US, kill unknown number
Baku, May 23 (AZERTAC). A massive tornado blasted its way across southwestern Missouri on Sunday, flattening several blocks of homes and businesses, smashing up cars and leaving an untold number of people dead.
The storm that swept through Joplin left behind piles of brick and wood where homes and schools once stood. Cars were ripped apart and thrown on top of each other. A wrecked helicopter lay on its side in front of a damaged hospital. The devastation was reminiscent of Tuscaloosa, Ala., last month, when a flurry of twisters killed more than 300 people across the South.
Missouri authorities said they could confirm that people had died in Joplin, but the numbers were unknown late Sunday and police said they had stopped the search overnight.
Triage centers and shelters were setup around the city of about 50,000 people about 160 miles south of Kansas City. At Memorial Hall, a downtown entertainment venue, nurses and other emergency workers from area hospitals were treating critically injured patients.
The same storm system that produced the Joplin tornado spawned twisters along a broad swath of the Midwest, from Oklahoma to Wisconsin. At least one person was killed in Minneapolis.
Travel through and around Joplin was difficult, with Interstate 44 shut down and streets clogged with emergency vehicles and the wreckage of buildings.
Gov. Jay Nixon activated the National Guard and declared a state of emergency, and President Barack Obama said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was working with state and local agencies.
Obama issued a statement sending condolences to families of those who died in storms in Joplin and across the Midwest.
Tornado warnings were posted throughout the evening for other southwestern Missouri counties as the system powered its way east.
In Minneapolis, city spokeswoman Sara Dietrich said the death was confirmed by the Hennepin County medical examiner. She had no other immediate details. Only two of the 29 people injured there were hurt critically.
Though the damage covered several blocks in Minneapolis, it appeared few houses were totally demolished.
In Wisconsin, the mayor of La Crosse declared a state of emergency Sunday after a severe storm hit, tearing roofs from homes and sending emergency responders. No one was seriously injured.
Sunday`s storms followed a tornado Saturday night that swept through a small eastern Kansas town, killing one person and destroying at least 20 homes, as severe thunderstorms pelted the region with hail that some residents described as the size of baseballs, authorities said Sunday.
Additional storms were predicted across the southern Plains through Thursday morning. An advisory from the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said warm weather Monday could fuel instability in advance of another weather system. A few tornadoes, some strong, could occur — starting in Oklahoma and southern Kansas in the afternoon and in North Texas in the late afternoon.
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