Scores of tornadoes whipped across the midwestern United States this weekend, killing at least 10 people, while a massive wildfire left seven people dead in Texas, officials and local media reported.
“There was a storm system that moved through the central US that brought everything from tornadoes to heavy snow to flooding in some areas,” Pat Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, told AFP.
“Missouri had more tornadoes in one day then they usually have in a season,” he said, adding that the weather service had not yet confirmed the state’s 110 tornado reports.
Most of the dead were killed in mobile homes or in their cars as they tried to escape the tornadoes in Missouri, St. Louis television station KMOV reported.
The University of Kansas was closed Monday after 60 percent of its buildings were damaged by Sunday’s storm, littering the campus with downed trees, broken glass and torn roofs.
In Illinois, public schools were closed and the governor ordered non-essential state employees to stay home Monday after tornadoes ripped through the capitol of Springfield.
In northern Texas, wildfires consumed more than 267,092 hectares (660,000 acres) with the largest of the fires stretching 72 kilometers (45 miles) long and 24 kilometers (15 miles) wide, the Dallas Morning News reported.
“This is probably one of the biggest fire days in Texas history,” Warren Bielenberg, a spokesman for the Texas Forest Service told the Dallas Morning News.
Texas is in a severe drought and has been ravaged by more than 10,000 wildfires that have burned across at least 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres) since December 26.
Four of the dead were killed Sunday in a chain-reaction accident caused by smoke obscuring the road. Three people died in fires near Borger, Texas.
Source: Agence France-Presse
