The tornadoes affected several areas of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee, leaving behind considerable material damage.
Dozens of people have died this Friday night as a result of the impact of several tornadoes in the midwestern region of the United States, where the most affected was the state of Kentucky, with at least 50 deaths, Governor Andy Beshear reported this Saturday.
The tornadoes affected several areas of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee, leaving behind considerable material damage.
“We believe our death toll from this event will exceed 50 Kentucky residents, probably ending closer to 70-100 lives lost,” Beshear said in a press appearance.
Beshear said a tornado made landfall and traveled about 200 miles (320 kilometers), in what would have been the “most severe event of its kind in Kentucky history.”
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The worst happened in the city of Mayfield, of about 10,000 inhabitants, where a tornado collapsed a factory where more than a hundred people worked at that time, causing a “massive” number of victims.
“There were about 110 people at the time the tornado hit him.”Beshear said. “We believe that we will lose at least dozens of those people. It is very hard, really hard, and we are praying for each and every one of those families, ”he said at his appearance.
The governor, who declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard and the Kentucky State Police in the face of the great damage caused, indicated that some areas have been so severely hit that it is “difficult to explain in words.”
Beshear said multiple tornadoes hit a dozen counties but the most severe of them initially originated in Arkansas and traveled a distance “never seen before.”
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This Saturday alerts remained active in parts of those states, as well as in Georgia and West Virginia, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.
According to the specialized website Poweroutage, Tennessee, with more than 135,000 affected, and Kentucky, with 69,501, registered this Saturday the highest number of customers without electricity service, although the blackouts covered a vast area that included neighboring states such as Texas, Michigan and Wisconsin, although it is still unknown if also due to the storm.
According to this Storm Prediction Center, 32 tornadoes have made landfall in the past few hours in multiple states across the country, including Tennessee, Illinois and Arkansas, where authorities have also reported fatalities.
The strong storm caused multiple employees of the e-commerce giant Amazon to be trapped inside a company warehouse on Friday after the collapse of that building located in Edwardsville (Illinois), local authorities reported.
Edwardsville Police Chief Michael Fillback on Saturday described what happened at that facility as a “total disaster”, with concrete and “things hanging.”
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Filback confirmed that at least two people lost their lives and that dozens were able to get out without being injured.
Relief agencies remain at the site, where bad weather still prevailed, and Edwardsville Mayor Art Risavy anticipated that operations at the site will continue for the next few days.
The collapse of the building was known shortly after a tornado made landfall in that town, around 20:30 local time (2:30 GMT time).
In Tennessee, two deaths were recorded in the far northwest corner of the state, according to Dean Flener, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, while a third person died in neighboring Obion County.
And in Arkansas at least one person died and several more were trapped in a nursing home when a tornado hit the building late Friday, local media reported.
The mayor of Monette (Arkansas), Bob Blankenship, told CNN on Saturday that his town has suffered “a lot of devastation” and remains without electricity.
He said two deaths were reported in Monette and one more in a nearby town. (I)
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