A line of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes marched across the nation’s midsection, peeling away roofs, overturning cars and killing at least 10 people in Tennessee, officials said.
At least eight of the deaths reported on Friday were northeast of Nashville, said Eddie Boatwright, spokesperson for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.
Fire Chief Joe Womack said three bodies were pulled from the wreckage of homes in a subdivision of Gallatin, about 39km north-east of the city.
The storms were moving to the northeast after developing from a low-pressure system in the central Plains.
They were the second wave of violent weather to hit Tennessee in less than a week. Last weekend, thunderstorms and tornadoes killed 24 people in the western part of the state and destroyed more than 1 000 homes and buildings.
Tornadoes were also reported in the Nashville suburbs of Goodlettsville, Hendersonville and Ashland City, and in Holladay, about 145km west of Nashville. The storms flattened trees, knocked down power lines and damaged homes and
other buildings.
Spotty communications made it difficult for emergency responders to get a full picture of the damage. Phone lines to authorities and most businesses were out of service.
Steven Davis, who lives about a block away from the hard-hit subdivision, said he was at home when he heard the storm was coming. He ran to a neighbour’s home that had a crawl space to take shelter.
”When the tornado came through, the roof was off just like that,” Davis said as he snapped his fingers. Houses on each side of his street were destroyed.
”Our neighbourhood is levelled,” Davis said.
Hospitals admitted at least 60 people with storm-related injuries and transferred at least nine critically injured patients to Nashville hospitals.
At Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, several people suffered cuts and scratches, spokesperson Eric Melcher said.
Two campus buildings were severely damaged, Melcher said. Emergency workers searched other buildings in an attempt to account for all students.
Three car dealerships near the college were devastated, with 250 cars destroyed.
In Ashland City, a tower that held the tornado warning siren was destroyed.
In Kentucky, two homes were destroyed, possibly by a tornado. In southern Indiana, the storms pelted some areas with golf ball-sized hail. High winds blew the roof off a country club toppled a semi-trailer.
The number of tornadoes in the United States has jumped dramatically in the first part of 2006 compared with the past few years, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Centre.
Through the end of March, 286 tornadoes had hit the United States, more than four times as many as the past three years. The number of tornado-related deaths was 38 before Friday’s storms. The average number of deaths from 2003 to 2005 was 45 a year, the prediction centre said. – Sapa-AP