Rescue teams in Mississippi searched for survivors yesterday after tornadoes tore through the southern US state, killing at least 10 people, injuring nearly two dozen and destroying homes.
Victims of the severe spring storms and tornadoes included two children — a three-month-old baby and a 14-year-old — a husband and his wife in Choctaw County, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Jeff Rent said.
The toll was expected to mount as rescuers cleared the debris after the storms tore roofs off buildings, reduced homes to rubble, overturned vehicles, downed power lines and toppled trees that blocked roads.
Rescuers struggled to get to hard-hit Yazoo County, nestled in hills rising sharply out of the Mississippi Delta. In some cases, they resorted to all-terrain vehicles to reach victims.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour declared a state of emergency in 17 counties devastated by the storms and twisters, and called on the National Guard to help local officials in their emergency response.
American Red Cross workers have also been dispatched to affected areas.
“The effects of these storms have left many Mississippians with destroyed businesses and without homes,” Barbour said in a statement.
Downed trees and power lines damaged 30 homes and closed two roads in Warren County alone.
Strong tornadoes meanwhile developed in neighboring states.
Four victims were flown by helicopter from Yazoo City to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, while the American Medical Response (AMR) service transported 17 others by ambulance to area hospitals, AMR spokesman Jim Pollard said.
Emergency response teams set up two shelters for storm victims in Vicksburg and Yazoo City.
The tornado that blasted through Yazoo City on Saturday was nearly 1.6km wide with winds whizzing at about 240kph, meteorologists said.
The severe weather leveled a local church. A man painting in the church at the time dove under the altar and emerged from under the splintered building with only a few scratches, WAPT television reported.
AMR operations in other parts of the state were dispatching ambulances to affected areas, while the emergency management agency in Rankin County sent a bus converted to a multi-patient ambulance.
“The patients had a range of injuries from minor to severe. In any tornado, any part of the body is vulnerable or susceptible to a wide variety of injuries,” Pollard said, noting that other “walking wounded” patients were treated on site.
Barbour was in Yazoo City when the tornado struck.
“He was going through some of the damaged areas and talking to some of the people who suffered the damage,” said his spokesman Dan Turner, noting that some buildings were “completely leveled; they are no longer there.”
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