Poorest US region hit: Tornado kills at least 26 people in US

The death toll from the devastating tornado in the southern United States has risen to at least 26. According to civil protection, the poorest US state of Mississippi alone left 25 dead and dozens injured, and media reports say neighboring Alabama at least one person died.

The head of the national civil protection agency FEMA, Deanne Criswell, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas wanted to visit the affected region this Sunday. The weather service warned of more severe storms.

At least one tornado swept through Mississippi Friday evening (local time), and multiple storms raged in the region. The tornado caused particular destruction in the towns of Silver City and Rolling Fork. Roofs were swept off houses, trees uprooted and power lines damaged. Some parts of the city were almost razed to the ground. “We will do everything we can to help,” US President Joe Biden promised in response to the “heartbreaking” images from Mississippi.

The tornado made landfall in Rolling Fork around 8 p.m. Friday, Lance Perrilloux of the National Weather Service told NPR. Then, within a good hour, he left a path of destruction over a distance of more than 270 kilometers. “This is one of the rarer tornadoes we’ve seen in Mississippi history, based on longevity and strength over a period of time,” Perrilloux said. At least one other, weaker tornado may have hit the state, but that has not yet been confirmed.

For Sunday, the weather service warned of severe thunderstorms with hailstones that can reach the size of chicken eggs. Other tornadoes and wind gusts with a speed of more than 110 kilometers per hour are also possible. The meteorologists assume that the storms will only subside in the evening and will probably be followed by a few showers.

Mississippi is considered the poorest state in the US, which is why such disasters hit the people there particularly hard. Reconstruction could take many years. About 2,000 people have lived in the almost completely destroyed town of Rolling Fork – many of them in converted caravans. A large part of the population lives below the poverty line of the country.

“My city is gone. But we will be resilient and we will come back,” the city’s mayor, Eldridge Walker, said on US television Saturday. When the storm warning came, he and his wife took shelter in the bathtub in their home. Now his city offers the picture of “complete devastation”. (sda/dpa)