Tornadoes have swept through portions of the United States Midwest, killing at least three people in Missouri, blowing roofs off homes in Illinois and Arkansas, and damaging about 60% of the buildings on the University of Kansas campus. A fourth storm death was reported in Indiana.
Violent storms continued early on Monday in Springfield, Illinois, where a tornado also struck on Sunday night, taking the roof off a Wal-Mart, and the mayor said he expected ”every square inch of Springfield” would have suffered some effect from the storms.
The storms forced the temporary closing of most major roads into the city. One man was reported missing after his home was destroyed, and 19 others were treated at local hospitals for tornado-related injuries, authorities said.
In Missouri, severe weather was blamed for three deaths, including a woman who was killed on Sunday as she tried to seek refuge from a tornado in her mobile home south of Sedalia. Two other people were missing on Sunday night and six were injured, officials said.
The severe weather followed a powerful storm that ripped through southern Missouri and southern Illinois late on Saturday, killing a married couple whose car was blown off the road and destroying homes along a path of more than 32km south of St Louis, officials said.
John Gagan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield, Missouri, said there would be no way of knowing the scope of the damage until Monday morning.
”We do not know the extent of this, since it’s ongoing and fresh,” he said. ”Reports are coming in as we speak, but we won’t know how bad it is until the light of day.”
The storm was the first of several that passed through eastern Kansas and across most of Missouri on Sunday. High winds lifted a cargo container off the airfield at Kansas City International airport and blew it into several vehicles. Hail — some the size of baseballs — was reported in several north-west Missouri counties.
Tornadoes also touched down on Sunday in Oklahoma and Arkansas, while heavy rains and flooding swamped roads in Indiana. One storm-related fatality was reported on Sunday in Indiana, where a man drowned after falling from a boat, state department of homeland security spokesperson Andy Zirkle said.
Between 25 and 50 homes were destroyed in north-eastern Oklahoma and 12 people were taken to hospital, though none appeared to suffer life-threatening injuries, said Mike Miller, spokesperson for the Cherokee Nation. — Sapa-AP
Associated Press reporters FN D’Alessio in Chicago, Noah Trister in Bentonville, Arkansas, David Lieb in Sedalia, Missouri, Garance Burke and Margaret Stafford in Kansas City, and Jim Salter in St Louis contributed to this report