Al Jazeera English - News - Storms Batter Three Us States

UPDATED ON:
SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2008
21:45 MECCA TIME, 18:45 GMT

NEWS AMERICAS





Storms batter three US states

At least 23 people have been killed in three US states after storms struck the area.

Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia bore the brunt of the devastation on Sunday, emergency officials said.

Officials in Georgia said at least 80,000 residents are without electricity across the state, mostly concentrated in the Atlanta and Macon areas.

At least one person was killed in the town of in Dublin, about 193km southeast of Atlanta, authorities said.

George Brown, a highway patrol officer, said those killed in the town of Picher, Oklahoma, included an infant.

He said at least three people were confirmed missing.

After a tornado devastated Picher on Saturday, many of whose residents had fled under a voluntary federal buyout scheme earlier.

Local residents said the tornado created a "surreal scene" as it moved in late in the afternoon, injuring 150 people, overturning cars, throwing mattresses and twisted metal high into the canopy of trees.

The tornado was the deadliest in Oklahoma since a May 1999 storm that killed at least 44 people in the Oklahoma City area.

The National Weather Service estimated that at least eight tornadoes had been spawned in Oklahoma along six storm tracks.

The same storm system then moved into southwest Missouri, where it claimed at least 14 more lives.

In the town of Seneca, near the Oklahoma border, crews on Sunday searched farm fields looking for bodies and survivors.

Source: Agencies

Related:
	US states hit by deadly tornadoes (03 May 2008)
	Tornadoes rip through US state (29 Apr 2008)

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