A tornado flipped cars, shredded trees and ripped mobile homes to pieces in the little riverside community of Riegelwood, North Carolina, early on Thursday, killing at least eight people, authorities said.
The disaster brought the two-day death toll from a devastating line of thunderstorms that swept across the United States South to 12.
Kip Godwin, chairperson of the Columbus County Commission in North Carolina, said authorities had concluded their search of the area where the eight people died — a cluster of mobile homes and an adjacent neighbourhood of brick homes — and had accounted for everyone.
Columbus county Sheriff Chris Batten said several of the dead were found within about 190m of where the tornado touched down. ”We assume they were literally consumed by the tornado,” he said.
Twelve people were hospitalised, including four children in critical condition, hospital officials said.
The storms, which began on Wednesday, unleashed tornadoes and straight-line winds that overturned mobile homes and tractor-trailers, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines across the South.
In Maryland, emergency crews performed several water rescues as dozens of people were trapped in their vehicles in high or fast-moving water, said Montgomery Fire and Rescue spokesperson Pete Piringer.
Three freight cars derailed in Bowie, Maryland, and investigators were trying to determine whether the storm caused the wreck, CSX spokesperson Gary Sease said. The empty coal hoppers jumped off tracks shared with Amtrak trains, bringing down some power lines. No one was injured.
In Louisiana, a man died on Wednesday when a tornado struck his home. In South Carolina, a utility worker checking power lines on Thursday during the storm was electrocuted. In North Carolina, two people died in car crashes as heavy rain pounded the state, dropping as much as 12cm in some areas.
The tornado that struck Riegelwood — situated on the Cape Fear River about 30km west of Wilmington — hit shortly after 6.30am on Thursday.
”There was no warning. There was no time,” said Cissy Kennedy, a radiologist’s assistant who lives in the area. ”It just came out from nowhere.”
As many as 40 mobile homes were damaged before the tornado crossed a highway and levelled three brick homes. About 100 people were left homeless, and dozens planned to sleep at a shelter at a nearby elementary school. At least two of the dead were children, Sheriff Batten said.
County commissioner Sammie Jacobs said that four to five mobile homes were demolished, and that there were ”houses on top of cars and cars on top of houses”.
”We’ve stepped across bodies to get to debris and search for other bodies here this morning,” Jacobs said.
The storm knocked out power to 45 000 customers in North Carolina, but the electricity was back on in most places by mid-afternoon.
The storm system also caused minor flooding in the Washington area, where rescuers grabbed several people stranded in their vehicles, and slowed commuters along most of the East Coast. — Sapa-AP