Indiana tornado kills 18

NEWBURGH, Indiana - A tornado tore through southern Indiana and parts of Kentucky early on Sunday killing at least 18 people and injuring more than 100, many of whom were sleeping when the twister hit, officials said.

At least six people were confirmed dead in Warrick County and at least 12 were killed in Vanderburgh County in Indiana, according to county officials. Hospitals reported taking in at least 160.

"We've had severe damage," said Newburgh Assistant Fire Chief Chad Bennett. "Homes were totally devastated. People are having to try to crawl out of their homes."

Officials said the death toll could climb as rescue workers picked through rubble in house-to-house searches and searched farm fields.

At least two people were found dead in soybean fields in Warrick County, according to the Newburgh fire department.

The Eastbrooke mobile home park in Evansville, Indiana, was one of the places hardest hit when the tornado came roaring through well before dawn. Many homes there were reduced to piles of twisted metal that lay mixed with the remains of downed trees and other debris.

In one trailer home, rescue workers found a young mother still alive but her husband and daughter were dead and her 2-year-old was missing, said Eric Williams, chief deputy of the sheriff's department in Vanderburgh County.

An apartment complex in nearby Warrick County also was hit hard, with the top floors ripped off, said Vanderburgh County Sheriff's office spokesman Lt John Strange.

"It is pretty widespread damage," he said.

In Henderson County, Kentucky, the Ellis Park racetrack also suffered major damage. The grandstand was ripped away, several barns were damaged and horses were killed.

Some 21,000 people were left without power and officials declared a local state of emergency as they scrambled to help survivors and search for victims.

The unexpected funnel cloud hit at about 2 am local time (0800 GMT), with little notice, touching down in Kentucky, then skipping across the Ohio River into southern Indiana. Alarm sirens sounded only about 10 minutes before the twister hit.

"Most people were asleep," Bennett said. "They probably didn't hear the sirens." That was the case for Melissa Walls and her family who were in their bedrooms, not their basement, when the tornado took the roof off their single-story brick house in Newburgh.

"I heard a noise and I thought it was hail so I ran into my son's room, he's 14 months... he had a cut on his head and his crib was full of bricks and debris," said Walls. "I looked up and my roof was gone." Walls was one of scores of dazed survivors wandering through battered neighbourhoods on Sunday, searching for clothing and other personal items to salvage from the wreckage.

Sunday's tornado left a path of destruction about 32 km long and 1.3 km wide from northern Kentucky across southern Indiana, officials said.

Such a severe tornado is rare in the US Midwest in November, according to the National Storm Prediction Centre. Peak tornado season is generally from April through June, although Ohio was hit with a similarly deadly funnel cloud in November 2002, according to Storm Prediction Centre spokesman Corey Mead.

Through September, killer tornadoes were reported in Georgia, Arkansas, Wyoming, Wisconsin and Mississippi this year, with a total of 10 dead in those storms.

On average tornadoes kill about 70 people annually in the United States. The single deadliest tornado in US history killed 689 people in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana in March 1925, according to the storm prediction Centre.

- REUTERS