JOPLIN – A monster tornado almost a mile (1.5km) wide killed at least 89 people in Joplin, Missouri when it tore through the heart of the small Midwestern city, ripping the roof off a hospital and destroying thousands of homes and businesses, local officials said yesterday.
US weather officials said the tornado that hit at dinnertime on Sunday might have been the single deadliest in the country since 1953. Rescue crews from throughout the region worked all night and battled a driving rain and thunder storm yesterday morning in the town of about 50,000 people, searching for anyone still alive in the rubble.
More than 500 people were confirmed injured, many with massive internal injuries, officials said. The number of dead and injured was expected to climb as rescue workers dug through collapsed homes and businesses.
A number of bodies were found along the city’s “restaurant row”, on the main commercial street and a local nursing home took a direct hit, Newton county coroner Mark Bridges said.
At St John’s Hospital in Joplin, 180 patients cowered as the fierce winds blew out windows and pulled off the roof. Others took refuge in restaurant coolers, huddled in closets, or just ran for their lives.
Roaring along a path almost 9.5km (six miles) long and about 1km (½ mile to ¾ mile) wide, it flattened entire neighbourhoods, splintered trees, flipped cars and trucks upside down and into each other. Some 2,000 homes and many other businesses, schools and other buildings were destroyed. An estimated 20,000 homes and businesses were without power yesterday.
“It is a significant tragedy,” said Missouri governor Jay Nixon. “We’re working on all cylinders. We’ve got to get an active and complete search . . . to make sure if there is anyone still alive in the rubble that we get them out.”
The city’s residents were given about 20 minutes’ notice when 25 warning sirens sounded throughout the southwest Missouri town around 6pm. But the governor said many people were unable to get to shelter in time.
“The bottom line was the storm was so loud you probably couldn’t hear the sirens going off.” He declared a state of emergency and called out the national guard to help.
The Missouri tornado was the latest in a string of powerful twisters that has wreaked death and devastation across many states, and it comes as much of the Mississippi River valley was underwater from record flooding.
Twisters have killed more than 300 people and caused more than $2 billion in damages across southern states last month. More than 200 people were killed in Alabama alone.
In Joplin yesterday Mayor Mike Woolston said: “The loss of life is incredible. We’re still trying to find people. The outlook is pretty bleak.”
Two refrigerated trucks were brought in to serve as a makeshift morgue at a local university and more were being brought in to handle the additional bodies expected, the coroner said.
President Barack Obama called the governor on Sunday evening to “extend his condolences” to the families of Joplin. White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said Federal Emergency Management Agency head Craig Fugate was on his way to the city to help with recovery. – (Reuters)