A tornado struck in Missouri on Wednesday, killing at least five people, according to authorities in that central U.S. state.
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• Also read: At least 32 dead after severe thunderstorms and storms hit US
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“Five confirmed deaths,” Missouri Traffic Police spokesman Sergeant Clark Parrott told AFP.
Footage obtained by the local Fox 2 channel showed trees uprooted and homes blown away in the village of Glenallen in the southeast state.
Several villages in Bollinger County “were struck by what appeared to be a sizeable tornado earlier this morning,” County Sheriff Casey Graham said, further confirming the five deaths.
“All morning and even now our search and relief operations are ongoing,” he continued on the Facebook page of the Bollinger County Sheriff’s Office.
Tornadoes, meteorological phenomena as impressive as they are difficult to predict, are widespread in the United States, particularly in the central and southern parts of the country.
Tornadoes and violent thunderstorms that swept across several American states last weekend killed at least 32 people.
Tennessee was particularly hard-hit, with 15 weather-related deaths, the southern state’s disaster management agency reported Sunday.
A week earlier, a tornado swept through Mississippi, killing 25 people and causing extensive property damage. President Biden was there.