Storms, tornadoes kill at least 27 in central US

RUTHERFORD, Tennessee - Tornadoes and violent spring thunderstorms in the central United States killed at least 27 people, splintering houses and tossing victims around like twigs.
They feared the death toll would rise in Tennessee, where 23 bodies have been found.

"The more we look, the more we find," said Donnie Smith, an official with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, describing the grim task of removing shattered debris to search for victims.

In Missouri, officials reported three deaths in the eastern part of that state, including one man killed when a tree fell on him in a state park. There was one death in southern Illinois when high winds demolished a clothing store.

Among the dead in Tennessee were an 11-month-old infant and a family of four. In all, 15 were killed in Dyer County and eight in nearby Gibson County, both in the northwest section of the state.

Preliminary aerial surveillance, Smith said, indicates that a single killer tornado moving relentlessly on a straight line destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes.

Connie Flowers said her sister and sister-in-law died when their homes near Rutherford were demolished by the tornado. Her sister Lisa's husband, Ronnie Ross, was found in an adjacent farm field with a broken back alongside his crumpled pickup truck.

"Everybody who survived is lucky. This has been a very unreal night and day. I'm just stunned," Flowers said as she and other relatives sifted through the rubble, picking up a stray shoe and pieces from a tea set.

Rutherford's park was torn up, its baseball diamonds barely recognizable, trees were shredded of their bark, and survivors were left aghast at nature's power.

"I don't know what the tornado sounded like because I was praying so hard," said Lavona Sweeney, who with her husband and son took cover in a ground-floor closet. Only the walls surrounding the closet were still standing in their obliterated home that, like many, lacked a basement.

"I knew things were getting bad when dirt and flower petals were blowing underneath the door," said neighbour Tracy Thomas, who gathered his family in a bathroom with a lantern when the storm hit after nightfall Sunday evening. Thomas said the petals came from a pear tree stripped of its blossoms.

The storms were caused by a cold front racing from the west and clashing with moist warm air from the south.

The federal Storm Prediction Centre in Oklahoma said it had reports of 63 tornadoes, though the number might actually be less when ground teams assess whether they actually were twisters.

Most of the tornado reports were in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa and Illinois, the Centre said. The town of Sinking Fork in Kentucky also suffered heavy damage from what may have been a tornado, officials there said.

- REUTERS