Tornadoes kill over 80 in 6 states

MAYFIELD, Kentucky－Dozens of devastating tornadoes roared through six US states overnight on Friday, leaving more than 80 people dead and dozens missing on Saturday in what President Joe Biden said was likely to be "one of the largest" storm outbreaks in US history.

"It's a tragedy," Biden said in televised comments. "And we still don't know how many lives are lost and the full extent of the damage."

As the night fell on Saturday, scores of search and rescue officials were helping stunned citizens across the US heartland sift through the rubble of their homes and businesses, searching for survivors.

More than 70 people are believed to have been killed in Kentucky alone, many of them workers at a candle factory, while at least six died in an Amazon warehouse in Illinois where they were on the night shift processing orders before Christmas. About 100 people were feared to be trapped in the ruins of the warehouse.

"This event is the worst, most devastating, most deadly tornado event in Kentucky's history," said state governor Andy Beshear. More than 100 people may have died, he said.

"The devastation is unlike anything I have seen in my life, and I have trouble putting it into words."

He declared a state of emergency in the state.

The western Kentucky town of Mayfield was reduced to "matchsticks", its mayor Kathy O'Nan told CNN.

The town of 10,000 people was described as "ground zero" by officials, and appeared post-apocalyptic: city blocks leveled; historic homes and buildings beaten down to their slabs; tree trunks stripped of their branches; cars overturned in fields.

Beshear said about 110 people were working in the candle factory when the storm hit, causing the roof to collapse.

Forty people had been rescued, but it would be "a miracle if anybody else is found alive", he said.

'Like a bomb'

"It looks like a bomb has exploded," Agence France-Presse quoted Alex Goodman, 31, who lives in Mayfield, as saying.

Another Mayfield man, David Norseworthy, 69, a builder, said the storm blew off his roof and front porch while the family hid in a shelter.

"We never had anything like that here."

Previously, the longest a US tornado has ever tracked along the ground was a 350-kilometer storm in Missouri in 1925. It claimed 695 lives.

Reports put the total number of tornadoes across the region at about 30.

At least 13 people were killed in other storm-hit states, some of those at the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, bringing the total toll to 83.

"We identified 45 personnel who made it out of the building safely, one who had to be airlifted to a regional hospital for treatment, and six fatalities," Edwardsville fire chief James Whiteford said.

Emergency operations had turned from rescue to focus "only on recovery", fueling fears the toll could rise.

Amazon chief Jeff Bezos said he was "heartbroken" at the deaths.

In Arkansas at least one person died when a tornado "pretty much destroyed" a nursing home in Monette, a county official said.

Another person died elsewhere in the state.

Four people died in Tennessee, and one died in Missouri. Tornadoes also touched down in Mississippi.

Agencies via Xinhua