Tornadoes and thunderstorms ravaged four states in the US south on Tuesday night, killing at least 47 people, injuring dozens and causing widespread damage, emergency services and local media said yesterday.
Twenty-four people were killed in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas and 1 in Alabama, CNN reported. Local officials would not immediately confirm the tolls.
More than 50 tornadoes touched down as a series of thunderstorms rare for the winter season rolled through the region late on Tuesday and early yesterday.
PHOTO: AP/BRUCE NEWMAN, OXFORD EAGLE
The violent storms swept across Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi. Both Arkansas and Tennessee were involved in "Super Tuesday" polls and several candidates expressed condolences to the victims.
Several polling stations in Tennessee and Arkansas had to be closed as the storm approached, reports said.
In Arkansas, emergency services said tornadoes hit as many as eight counties.
"It's a pretty rough night in the scope of it. I don't know if I can remember when we've had as many [tornado] warnings and touchdowns," Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe said in a telephone interview from an emergency operations center in North Little Rock.
The governor's spokesman, Matt DeCample, said there was "no clue" as to how many were injured.
At least three people were killed at a mobile home park in Kentucky, the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper reported.
The Nashville Tennessean said that the National Weather Service had recorded a half dozen tornadoes in Tennessee and Mississippi.
Extensive damage in Tennessee included part of a shopping mall in Memphis and a dormitory at Union University in Jackson, where some students were trapped for a time but not seriously injured, the Web site of Memphis' Commercial Appeal said.
The paper quoted a National Weather Service spokesman as saying that the Memphis area had been hit by a "pretty significant tornado."
ABC affiliate WAPT in Jackson, Mississippi reported that a 15m wall had collapsed at the Sears store in the Hickory Ridge Mall in Memphis and that an unknown number of people were trapped in a nearby industrial plant.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2