About 50 people are likely to have died in the devastating tornadoes that hit Kentucky and other US states late last night, Friday night and this morning, said Kentucky Governor Andy Besir, according to the Washington Post.
Besir was quoted by the Post as saying in an interview with local television station WLKY that the death toll could be “significantly higher than that”.
“The information is really heartbreaking,” the governor was quoted as saying by the Post. The newspaper adds that a representative of the state emergency management service stated that rescue service officials had not confirmed numbers of dead or injured until this morning.
In Tennessee, bad weather has claimed the lives of at least three people, Dean Flenner, a spokesman for the state’s Emergency Management Agency, told the Post.
At least one person was killed and five were injured when a tornado destroyed the roof of a nursing home in Monet, Arkansas, local officials said, according to the Post.
In Illinois, authorities said many people were trapped after a partial roof collapsed at an Amazon.com Inc warehouse near St. Louis late Friday night after tornadoes and severe storms hit the area.
Besir, who declared his state of emergency, reportedly said the damage would be “one of the worst we have seen in a long time.”
People are trapped in an Amazon warehouse in Illinois
Many people have been trapped after part of the roof of an Amazon e-commerce warehouse collapsed near St. Louis, Illinois, after tornadoes and heavy rains hit the area, local officials said.
The Collinsville County Emergency Management Agency said there was “an incident with many casualties,” adding that many people were trapped inside the warehouse in Edwardsville, southern Illinois.
In its Facebook post, the service did not provide more information, while it is not yet known if and how many people have been killed or injured.
An Amazon spokesman said the company was monitoring the situation.
Dead and trapped in a nursing home
Earlier, US media reported that at least two people were killed Friday, five were injured and many were trapped after a nursing home in northeastern Arkansas, in the central US, was hit by a tornado.
The tornado that struck the nursing home in Monet City, near the border with neighboring Tennessee, was one of many created in the area, according to local television network KAIT.
“Twenty people are trapped in Monette Manor at the moment and we have two confirmed victims,” ​​Kreghed County Judge Marvin Day told CNN.
There are also reports that another nursing home in Truman has also been damaged, with fire and rescue crews rushing to the scene, KAIT reported.
Strong storms raging in the central US states since late Friday have caused at least two tornadoes, according to officials.
Extreme weather conditions stretch from the Mississippi Valley to central Ohio, and the U.S. Meteorological Agency has issued strong warnings for tornadoes in Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
.
