Tornado strikes in Mississippi killing 26 in the region

[객원 에디터 5기 / 이석현 기자] A couple of tornadoes struck in Georgia on Sunday. Two tornadoes described by the National Weather Service as very big in size and can cause serious consequences. Due to the powerful tornado outbreak, storm-battered Mississippi had at least 25 people being left dead. It lifted many buildings and destroyed many of them. The tornado went on for an hour and a half and destroyed around 170 miles (274 km) of the region, according to Nicholas Price.

The storm system created a huge tornado which was the cause for the destruction of the community across the state of Mississippi.The biggest twister obliterated most of the buildings in many small towns, flipping cars on their sides and breaking power lines. In the town of Rolling Fork, which has a population of about 2,000 people, entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble. Video of the phenomenon showed destroyed cars, trees bent and many infrastructures getting broken down. Willie T. Edmondson told CNN that the tornado “was awful and a lot of homes were destroyed,”. According to Troup County Emergency Management Director Zachary Steele, around 100 homes were damaged and 30 to 40 of them were completely or severely destroyed.

Cornel Knight reported to the Associated Press that his family were staying with relatives in Rolling Fork at the time. He experienced the tornado and said that the surroundings were frighteningly quiet just before the tornado struck. He said the tornado struck another relative’s house and broke a wall which trapped people inside. “As soon as we would go from one vehicle to the next vehicle or from building to building, we could hear screams and we could hear cries for help,” a storm chaser Michael Searcy told Reuters. “And we were just basically in small groups, digging through the rubble, trying to find and extricate people.”

U.S. President Joe Biden described the disaster in Mississippi as heartbreaking and said that he had spoken with Reeves and offered support for a speedy recovery of the state. A lot of actions should take place in order to help these cities recover from this catastrophe.

Sources: The Guardian, BBC, Reuters, ABC News, New York Times, CNN