Tornadoes wreak havoc across Midwest
Five dead as storm leaves small Illinois town looking like a war zone
A fast-moving storm system triggered multiple tornadoes on Sunday that killed at least six people and flattened large parts of a town in Illinois as it tore across the Midwest, authorities said.
The tornadoes levelled scores of homes and demolished entire neighbourhoods. Some 80 tornado reports were received, along with 358 reports of damaging winds and 40 reports of large hail, according to Rich Thompson, a lead forecaster with the weather service’s Storm Prediction Centre in Norman, Oklahoma.
Traffic was halted briefly at Chicago’s two major airports, and tens of thousands of people in several states lost power.
By early on Monday three people were reported killed in Massac County, two in Washington County and one in the city of Washington, in Tazewell County, said Patti Thompson of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.
The National Weather Service confirmed preliminary EF-4 tornado damage in Washington County in southern Illinois, with winds of 267-322 km/h.
The unusual late-season storms moved dangerously fast, tracking east at 97 km/h, with the bulk of the damage spanning about five hours, Thompson said. Wind damage threats continued across Pennsylvania and New York.