At least 18 people were killed yesterday in Missouri and Oklahoma after tornadoes swept through the area, authorities in the two states said.
There were at least 12 storm-related deaths in Missouri, 10 of those in Newton County on the border with Oklahoma, according to Susie Stonner of the Missouri Emergency Management Agency.
"There's a lot of wreckage and overturned vehicles," she said, adding police had not ruled out finding more victims.
Hardest hit was Racine, a tiny community along the state line about 170 miles south of Kansas City. Six people were also killed in the small northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher, officials said.
Local television footage from Picher showed widespread devastation. Homes were ripped from their foundations, trees were stripped of leaves and sheet metal was twisted like paper.
Fifty people have been treated for injuries ranging from head trauma to lacerations and broken bones, said Jennifer Hessee, spokeswoman for the Integris Baptist Regional Health Center in Miami, Oklahoma, 15 miles from Picher.
Picher is at the center of a massive federal clean-up of pollution from lead and zinc mining. Residents were being assisted with relocation from the community after high levels of lead were found in groundwater.
In all, the US National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, recorded 34 tornado reports in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, though some were multiple reports about the same twister or twisters.
The National Weather Service in Springfield, Missouri, said it would send out assessment teams on Sunday morning todetermine the scope of the damage, and figure out the number and paths of the tornadoes.