On Friday night, at least 50 people died in Kentucky after the passage of a tornado, reported this Saturday the governor of the state of the United States. At the moment, several regions of the country are being affected by storms.
Different towns in Kentucky were devastated due to the phenomenon.
“I’m afraid there are more than 50 dead in Kentucky, they are probably between 70 and 100 (deceased), it is devastating”, Andy Beshear said at a press conference.
The governor explained that this was “the most serious tornado in Kentucky history”.
The collapse of the roof of a candle factory left a large number of victims in the town of Mayfield, said the person in charge.
“Before midnight (Friday), I declared a state of emergency,” precise.
Damage to Amazon warehouse after tornado in Kentucky
The storms left victims and damage in several states in the southeastern and south-central United States on Friday.
One of them, which occurred earlier, affected an Amazon distribution center in Illinois, according to authorities. The media reported that a hundred workers were trapped at the scene.
This Saturday, emergency teams are working to rescue the distribution giant’s employees, a third of which was reduced to rubble.
Employees worked the night shift manufacturing thousands of orders before the holidays.
The Collinsville Emergency Management Agency described the incident as a “incident with multiple victims” with “several people trapped in the Amazon warehouse”.
A tornado warning was active for the location at the time of the phenomenon
Images shared on social networks and on American television show how a large part of the roof of the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville was torn off by the phenomenon, while one of its walls had collapsed.
Debris is visible all over the site, but it was not immediately clear whether there were injuries or deaths at that facility.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzer said Friday night: “My prayers go out to the people of Edwardsville tonight”.
The police and the state emergency agency “are coordinating closely with local authorities and I will continue to monitor the situation,” he added.
In a statement sent to local media, Amazon spokesman Richard Rocha said that “the safety and well-being of our employees and partners is our top priority right now. We are addressing the situation and will share additional information when we have it”.
Meanwhile, in Arkansas another person died and about 20 were trappeds after a tornado struck a nursing home, local media reported.
A Craighead County official, Marvin Day, told local television networks that rescuers had successfully removed the people trapped there, but that the structure was “quite destroyed”.
And in Tennessee, at least two people were killed in storm-related accidents, according to a person in charge of emergency management quoted by local media.