A tornado killed a woman and her nine-week-old infant and also injured at least 30 on Friday in central Tennessee as a line of storms lifted homes, ripped off roofs and dumped hail in the southeast.
Elsewhere, a tornado touched down in southwestern Kentucky, injuring two people and destroying homes. A possible tornado was reported in northeast Alabama. And large hail began falling in several North Carolina counties.
Three dozen people were hurt in Rutherford County, Tennessee, four of them critically, in the aftermath of a storm system that killed three in western Arkansas a day earlier.
PHOTO: AP
“I think we’re right in the middle of tornado alley these days,” said Dan Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department.
Dispatchers at the Rutherford County Emergency Management Agency said the area had been “heavily impacted” after several eyewitness reported of a tornado on the ground at about midday.
In Murfreesboro, 50km southeast of Nashville, at least three dozen homes were destroyed.
Andrew Piro, 23, who was on his way to work when the tornado struck, told the Knoxville News-Sentinel he came upon a man who said his brother’s wife and child were missing.
“Outside under the rubble, we found the wife,” Piro said. “She was right beside the driveway, about 20 feet [6m] away from the house.”
“She was under a bunch of wood, I guess part of the roof. We found the baby strapped into a car seat, about another 20 feet away under a tree. It broke my heart,” he said.
Kori Bryant, in her mid-20s, and nine-week-old Olivia Bryant were identified as the dead.
“They were found outside of the residence,” rescue official Randy White said. “It looked like they were trying to get to the car. The infant was in a car seat.”
Joe Spencer, 23-year-old student, said he survived a direct hit on his house.
“I was going to open the door to see what was going on and I looked straight at a tornado,” Spencer said.
He yelled at his brother to take shelter and ran to the bathroom.
“The bathtub started shaking, and I just tried to grab hold to anything I could. I grabbed the nozzle and turned on the water,” said Spencer, who was shaken but uninjured.
Friday afternoon, search teams fanned out across Murfreesboro, a city of about 100,500, looking for anyone trapped in homes. Clyde Atkinson, spokesman for the Murfreesboro Police Department, said he believed there were three to five touchdowns mostly in the northern and western parts of the city.
A grocery store evacuated customers into a cooler until the storm passed.
Roofs were ripped away from at least a dozen homes, and some trees were blown down. A bulldozer was clearing tree limbs and other debris from streets.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS