Americas

Americas

Tornadoes slam midsection, at least 18 dead

03 March 2012 04:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A swarm of tornadoes ripped across the U.S. midsection on Friday, killing at least 18 people in the hard-hit states of Indiana and Kentucky as it splintered homes, damaged a prison and tossed around vehicles across the region, APA reports quoting Reuters.

At least 13 people were killed in southern Indiana and another five died in neighboring Kentucky from a lengthy band of powerful storms that battered the region from Ohio to Alabama.

"We are no match for Mother Nature at her worst," Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said in a statement, adding that he would visit the stricken southeast corner of the state on Saturday.

Another possible storm-related death occurred in Henryville, Indiana, where television images showed homes blown apart.

CNN aired video taken from the air showing rescue workers in Indiana picking through one splintered house, residents sifting through the ruins of a home, and a school bus thrown into a building. Several warehouse-like structures had their roofs ripped off.

Major Chuck Adams of the Clark County Sheriff’s office said there was extensive damage to a school in Henryville but said: "All the children are out. No injuries to any of them, just minor scrapes and abrasions."

Indiana officials confirmed 13 deaths from the tornadoes on Friday, including four in Jefferson County, four in Washington County, three in Scott County and two in Ripley County.

Four of the Kentucky deaths were in Menifee County in the eastern half of the state and a fifth in Kenton County, near Louisville.

Storm warnings were issued throughout the day from the Midwest to the Southeast. Schools, government offices and businesses closed ahead of the storms, which came after a series of tornadoes earlier in the week killed 13 people in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee.

This week’s violent storms raised fears that 2012 will be another bad year for tornadoes after 550 deaths in the United States were blamed on twisters last year, the deadliest year in nearly a century, according to the Weather Service.

The highest death tolls were from an April outbreak in Alabama and Mississippi that claimed 364 lives, and from a May tornado in Joplin, Missouri, that killed 161 people. There were two tornado-related deaths earlier this year in Alabama.

ALABAMA TOWN STRUCK FOR SECOND YEAR

An area near Huntsville, Alabama, which was struck by a tornado during an April 2011 outbreak that killed 364 of people, was hit again on Friday by a tornado that took a similar path. An emergency management official said seven people had been transported to hospitals.

"There were two storms that moved across the area, very close together, almost attached to each other," National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Darden said. The Weather service said the damage was from an EF-2 tornado with winds of 120 miles per hour that took a similar path to a devastating tornado on April 27, 2011.

Authorities said 40 homes were destroyed and 150 damaged in two northern Alabama counties on Friday.

A prison, Limestone Correctional Facility, was in the path of the storm, Alabama officials said. High winds caused roof damage to two dormitories, forcing 300 inmates to be moved to elsewhere in the facility.

No one was seriously injured at the prison and there were no risks of prisoners escaping, though there was damage to some perimeter fencing and a canteen, said Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Multiple tornadoes also struck Tennessee and along the Ohio River valley in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

In Kentucky, a small trailer park, a fire station and a few homes in Trimble County were destroyed by suspected tornadoes about 40 miles northwest of Louisville, the Kentucky State Police said. The fire house and trailer park in Milton "were down to the ground," said the state police’s Kevin Woosley.

Nashville was pounded by rain and hail, and suspected tornadoes struck twice, hours apart, in eastern Tennessee near Chattanooga. Among the places hit was the valley below historic Lookout Mountain.

"We’ve had 29 injuries in the state, but no fatalities," said Dean Flener of the Tennessee emergency management agency.

Storm damage to transmission lines in Tennessee forced operators to reduce the output of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s 1,126-megawatt Unit 2 at the Sequoyah nuclear plant to 70 percent from full power, a spokeswoman said.

More than 57,000 customers served by providers in the TVA service area were without power in north Alabama, western Kentucky and southeast Tennessee, the power supplier said.