Nurses told of desperate attempts to move patients away from windows and into enclosed hallways. They had about 20 minutes before the black funnel cloud descended, hovering over the hospital for about a minute. At least five of the 116 dead were killed at the hospital.Ībout 180 patients were in the hospital when the warning sirens went off, witnesses said. The nine-storey building, the tallest in town, took a direct hit. Some of the worst destruction was at St John's Regional Medical Centre. We've lost tonnes and tonnes of homes, and we have people out trying to uncover the dead right now." "The trees," he told National Public Radio, "they're like somebody's taken a knife and cut all the bark off of them. The former mayor, Gary Shaw, described the scene in the town of 50,000 as a war zone. The town's fire department estimated up to a third of buildings were damaged or destroyed. The twister cut a six-mile swath through the centre of the town, wrecking churches, schools, businesses and homes. Sunday night's tornado was the deadliest since 1953, and the second tornado disaster in the US in less than a month. A new tornado watch was issued on Monday night for the areas around Joplin, as well as Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Texas. The authorities warned the death toll could rise.Īnd there was no immediate end in sight. The rescue effort once again pitched humans against the elements, as emergency crews equipped with axes and torches worked their way through rubble looking for survivors, lashed by strong winds and occasional hail.
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