A monstrous tornado struck six states of the US overnight, killing more than 80 people and dozens of others missing.
According to local media reports, more than 70 people are believed to have been killed in Kentucky alone as the storm ripped through a candle factory where over a score of people were working overnight.
At least six people lost their lives in an Amazon warehouse in Illinois where they were on the night shift processing orders ahead of Christmas.
Visuals posted by multiple news agencies showed apocalyptic visuals with historic homes and buildings beaten down to their slabs; tree trunks stripped of their branches; derailed trains; cars overturned in fields.
“It’s a tragedy. We still don’t know how many lives are lost and the full extent of the damage,” US President Joe Biden said in televised comments.
Biden said the tornado is likely to be one of the largest storm outbreaks in the history of America.
Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky, said it was “the worst, most devastating, most deadly tornado event in the state’s history.” “The devastation is unlike anything I have seen in my life, and I have trouble putting it into words,” he also told reporters, according to AFP.
Here are key points:
> Officials carrying rescue and relief operations in the storm-hit states feel the death toll might rise further as they clear the routes and snow.
> Briefing the media over the situation, Edwardsville fire chief James Whiteford told reporters the operation turned from rescue to focus “only on recovery,” fuelling fears the toll could rise further.
> According to an AFP report, at least one person died when a tornado almost destroyed a nursing home in Monette, Arkansas.
Four people died in Tennessee and one in Missouri. Tornadoes also touched down in Mississippi, it also reported.
> Recounting the ordeal, 31-year-old Mayfield resident Alex Goodman said, “It looks like a bomb has exploded,” as per the AFP report.
> Another 69-year-old local builder said the storm blew off his roof and front porch while the family hid in a shelter. “We never had anything like that here,” he was quoted as saying by AFP.
> More than half a million homes in several states were left without power, according to PowerOutage.com.
> Previously, the longest a US tornado has ever tracked along the ground was a 219-mile storm in Missouri in 1925. It claimed 695 lives.
