Death toll rises as tornadoes wreak havoc in United States

A VIOLENT storm system powering through the Midwest and South yesterday spawned tornadoes and powerful winds that turned homes into splintered wreckage, crumpled cars and killed at least 13 people.

The system – which followed closely behind the one that spawned the massive twister that struck Joplin, Missouri, and killed more than 120 people – moved into the Oklahoma City area on Tuesday evening as worried commuters rushed home from work.

The Oklahoma Medical Examiner's office said the storms killed five people in Canadian County, two in Logan County and one in Grady County. A child was among those killed.

At least three people died as the storms bombarded Arkansas' Franklin and Johnson counties. Department of Emergency Management spokesman Tommy Jackson said one person died after a tornado hit the tiny western Arkansas community of Denning early yesterday. Another died in an area called Bethlehem, in Johnson County.

Franklin County's chief deputy sheriff, Deputy Devin Bramlett, said one person also died in the community of Etna.

Several people were injured in Franklin and Johnson counties. A rural fire station in the former was left without a roof; fallen trees and downed power lines blocking roads also slowed search-and-rescue efforts.

In Kansas, police said two people died when high winds threw a tree into their van around 6pm near the small town of St. John, about 100 miles west of Wichita. The highway was shut down because of storm damage.

Meanwhile, the search for missing people after Joplin's lethal twister continued yesterday, with city leaders refusing to abandon hope of finding more survivors.

The death toll rose to at least 122, with 750 people hurt, from a twister that the National Weather Service said was classed as an EF5, the strongest rating assigned to tornadoes, with winds of more than 200 mph.

"We are still in a search-and-rescue mode," said Mark Rohr, Joplin's city manager. "I want to emphasise that."

Shadowing the rescue work in the southwest Missouri city of 50,000 people was uncertainty over just how many survivors remained to be found. Nine people have been rescued since Sunday's disaster, but authorities have hesitated to say how many people are unaccounted for. They also said many were believed to have simply left the area safely.

The Joplin tornado was the deadliest single twister since the weather service began keeping official records in 1950 and the eighth deadliest in US history. Scientists said it appeared to be a rare "multivortex" tornado, with two or more small, intense centres of rotation orbiting the larger funnel.

Bill Davis, the lead forecaster on a National Weather Service survey team, said he would need to look at video to confirm that.

But he said the strength of the tornado was evident from the many robust buildings that were damaged: St John's Regional Medical Center, Franklin Technology Center, a bank gone except for its vault, a Pepsi bottling plant and "numerous well-built residential homes that were basically levelled".