A damaged home near Silver City, Mississippi, after a tornado touched down in the area March 25, 2023. At least 23 people died as violent storms and at least one tornado ripped through the southern US state of Mississippi, tearing off roofs and flattening neighborhoods, officials and residents. Photo: AFP
At least 25 people have been killed and dozens injured after a tornado and strong thunderstorms ripped across Mississippi, leaving hundreds without shelter, state officials say.
Mississippi's emergency management agency said on Saturday afternoon that the death toll had risen to 25, with dozens more injured. Four people who had been reported missing earlier had been located, the agency said.
The tornado stayed on the ground for about an hour and cut a path of destruction some 274km long, according to Nicholas Price, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, Mississippi.
The tornado struck Silver City, a town of 200 people in western Mississippi, as well as Rolling Fork, with a population of 1900, which was hardest hit. Parts of the state remain under tornado warning.
Governor Tate Reeves, who visited Silver City on Saturday, declared a state of emergency in the affected areas.
"The scale of the damage and loss is evident everywhere affected today," he wrote on Twitter. "Homes, businesses ... entire communities."
Search and rescue teams combed through the destruction looking for survivors in Silver City and Rolling Fork.
Michael Searcy, a storm chaser who saw the tornado approach Rolling Fork, spent hours helping to rescue trapped people.
"As soon as we would go from one vehicle to the next vehicle or from building to building, we could hear screams and we could hear cries for help," he told Reuters. "And we were just basically in small groups, digging through the rubble, trying to find and extricate people."
Members of one family narrowly escaped by taking shelter in a bathroom; the rest of the house collapsed around them, and the high winds dropped a van on top of the home, Searcy said.
"My city is gone, but we are resilient," Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker said on CNN. "We are going to come back strong."
Walker said several people were trapped in their homes, adding that rescue efforts were under way.
He said 12 of the people who died were in Rolling Fork. Television images showed uprooted trees, houses ripped apart and damaged motor vehicles. Many areas were without electricity.
Humphreys County Sheriff Bruce Williams told CNN that "this town has been destroyed like a bomb hit it."
Williams said there were no missing persons reported, but three deaths had been confirmed in the county.
In Alabama, which was also struck by the same storm system, rescuers pulled a man from the mud when his trailer was overturned, but the man later died from his injuries, according to the Morgan County Sheriff's Office. That appeared to be the only reported death in that state as of Saturday evening.
US President Joe Biden described the images from Mississippi as "heartbreaking" and said in a statement that he had spoken with Reeves and offered his condolences and full federal support for the recovery.
"To those impacted by these devastating storms, and to the first responders and emergency personnel working to help their fellow Americans, we will do everything we can to help," Biden said. "We will be there as long as it takes. We will work together to deliver the support you need to recover."
Mississippi officials set up three emergency shelters, including at the National Guard Armory in Rolling Fork. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Deanne Criswell will travel to Mississippi on Sunday, the White House said.
Grim situation
Yazoo Constable Jeremy McCoy, who had gone to Rolling Fork to assist with rescue efforts told CNN of the grim situation on the ground and stepping on nails.
"I've never seen anything like that," said McCoy. "You hope to hear somebody call, a baby crying, a dog barking or something, but hear nothing."
Emergency personnel and clean up crews in Silver City, Mississippi. Photo: AFP
Tracy Harden, owner of Chuck's Dairy Barn, told the network that she and her husband sought shelter in a cooler. Others hunkered down in their homes, finding refuge in bathtubs.
The organisation Volunteer Mississippi, through the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, asked citizens not to self-deploy, but welcomed donations of water and other resources.
It said unaffiliated volunteers would be matched with affiliated groups on the ground when the time was right.
"We tried to get ourselves into the middle part of the house and we did, we got in there and obviously it was coming right behind us because as soon as we got in there, we heard a big boom and didn't hear anything else for a little while," an unidentified resident of Winona told ABC News affiliate WTVA.
"So we walked out and then just came out to about 10 trees down in our yard."
A Rolling Fork resident, Brandy Showah, also told CNN that the town was gone. "I've never seen anything like this," she said, adding that her grandmother's house suffered damage.
"My friend was trapped in her home a few houses down, but we got her out," Showah said, adding that people who lived next to her grandmother were still trapped in their houses.
Todd Terrell, who heads a volunteer rescuers group called United Cajun Navy, told ABC News that Rolling Fork was "pretty much devastated" and many people remained trapped in their homes.
Terrell compared the destruction to a tornado in Joplin, Missouri, that killed 161 people in 2011.
At least 24 reports of tornadoes were issued to the National Weather Service on Friday night and into Saturday morning (local time) by storm chasers and observers.
The reports stretched from the western edge of Mississippi north through the centre of the state and into Alabama.
Photographs of the destruction published by news networks showed entire buildings left in rubble and cars turned over on their sides as people climbed through the debris in darkness.
"Many in the MS Delta need your prayer and God's protection tonight," the governor, Reeves, said in a tweet. "We have activated medical support - surging more ambulances and other emergency assets for those affected."
-Reuters