Desperate search after deadly storms

MAYFIELD, Kentucky－Emergency workers on Sunday desperately searched for survivors of ferocious late-season tornadoes that killed at least 94 people across several states and left towns in ruins, including the debris of a Kentucky candle factory that has become a symbol of the widespread devastation.

US President Joe Biden has called the wave of tornadoes "one of the largest" storm outbreaks in the history of the United States and declared a major federal disaster in Kentucky, paving the way for additional federal aid. "We still don't know how many lives are lost and the full extent of the damage," he said.

But Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear warned that the search in the candle factory in Mayfield－a town almost completely wiped out by the twisters－may be in vain, admitting "another rescue" may not happen there. He said the tornadoes were the most destructive in the state's history and that even the sturdiest structures of steel and brick were flattened.

With the death toll all but certain to rise, scores of search and rescue officers were helping stunned citizens across the US heartland sift through the rubble of their homes and businesses.

"The very first thing that we have to do is grieve together and we're going to do that before we rebuild together," Beshear said on Sunday.

More powerful and destructive storms will be the "new normal" in the US as the effects of climate change take root, the country's top emergency management official said on Sunday.

"This is going to be our new normal," Deanne Criswell, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN's State of the Union program as she did a round of national Sunday morning talk shows before she headed to Kentucky to assess the damage and help coordinate the federal response.

"The effects that we're seeing from climate change are the crisis of our generation," the agency's chief added.

More than 80 people are dead in Kentucky alone, many of them workers at the Mayfield factory, Beshear said. About 110 employees were working on Friday night there.

Condolences from Russia

The storm system's power placed it in historic company.

Storm trackers said it had lofted debris 9,100 meters in the air, and the deadly Mayfield twister appeared to have broken an almost century-old record, tracking on the ground well more than 320 kilometers.

As the country grappled with the immensity of the disaster, condolences poured in, with Biden's Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, in a break from tense bilateral relations, saying his country "shares in the grief" of those who lost loved ones.

The catastrophe has shaken many people, including officials who have worked through other big storms.

Mayfield, a town of about 10,000 near the westernmost tip of Kentucky, was described as "ground zero" by officials: City blocks were leveled, historical homes and buildings beaten down to their slabs, tree trunks stripped of their branches and cars overturned in fields.

More than 300 members of the National Guard were going door to door and removing debris. Teams were working to distribute drinking water and generators.

Mayfield resident Steve Wright, 61, said his apartment complex was largely spared, so he grabbed a flashlight after the storm passed and started looking for people who might be trapped. He ended up helping a father pull his dead 3-year-old child from the rubble.

"It was bad. I helped dig out a dead baby, right up here," he said gesturing to debris that used to be a two-story house. "I prayed for both of them. That was all I could do."

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

At least 14 people were killed in other storm-hit states, including six at an Amazon facility in Illinois.

Four were killed in Tennessee, two died in Arkansas, while Missouri recorded two fatalities. Tornadoes also touched down in Mississippi.

Agencies - Xinhua