US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has described last week’s tornado tornado in the town of Joplin, Missouri, where 139 people are now known to have died, as a “national tragedy”.
Mr Obama said it will require a “national response” while visiting the the town yesterday to take part in a memorial service.
“I can promise you, your country will be with you every step of the way,” he told area residents.
“We will be with you every step of the way until Joplin is restored and this community is back on its feet – we’re not going anywhere,” he said at the service.
“We’re going to be here long after the cameras leave,” he said, referring to federal support for rebuilding efforts that he predicted would be “a tough, long slog”.
Mr Obama, who returned on Saturday night from a six-day trip to Europe, toured the disaster scene where crushed cars, piles of wood and clothing lay amid the rubble on lots where houses once stood.
The May 22nd tornado was the deadliest single twister in the United States since 1947.
It killed at least 139 people and injured more than 900. Scores of people are still unaccounted for.
With winds of up to 322km/hr, the tornado slammed into the city of 50,000 in the southwest of the state and left a swath of destruction nearly a mile wide, damaging about 8,000 buildings.
Standing amid the wreckage, Mr Obama told reporters after meeting survivors that he had heard some “harrowing stories” but also some “miraculous ones”. He said he had spoken with an 85-year-old man who had just taken a chicken pot pie out of the oven when the storm was approaching.
“He went into the closet and came out without a scratch,” Mr Obama said.
The president got a big-picture view of the damage from his plane before landing.
He was accompanied on the tour by Missouri governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, and US senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat of Missouri.
– (Reuters)