Social networks have been flooded with videos and photographs of the devastating passage of a tornado through Mississippi, United States, during the night of this Friday, March 24.
In the images shared by several Twitter users, it is seen that the climatic phenomenon ended everything in its path. Houses completely destroyed, cars on the trees, electrical wiring on the ground, chaos and confusion, This is what can be seen in the different clips that were posted on the different platforms.
Search and rescue operations are underway in Sharkey and Humphreys counties, about 110 kilometers north of Jackson, the state capital, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) said, according to local press.
“Many in the (Mississippi) Delta need your prayers and God’s protection tonight,” state Governor Tate Reeves said on Twitter.
“We have activated medical aid, sending more ambulances and other emergency resources for those affected.os”, he added, while asking the public to maintain caution.
ABC reported that 13 people had died in Sharkey County, three in Carroll County and two others in Monroe County. In Silver City, in Humphreys County, a state highway patrol officer told ABC that one person had been killed.
“As for the official damage figures, we won’t have them until tomorrow,” said MEMA’s Malary White.
The Jackson National Weather Service reported early Saturday that the tornado watch had passed. “Additional showers and thunderstorms are expected throughout our area,” he said on Twitter, adding that they were “not expected to become severe.”
California Suffers Strong Storms and Tornadoes
Just a tornado ripped off roofs and swept away vehicles in a southern California city on Wednesday, as a storm ripped through the western United States, already hard hit by a series of weather events. The swirling mass of wind lashed out at the city of Montebello, near Los Angeles, forcing its residents to seek shelter.
“I was driving … and I saw this tornado in front of me and I had to turn back,” a local merchant told the station. KTLA. “The tornado ripped the roof off the building, all the car windows were smashed. The cars were destroyed, it was a disaster”.
The National Weather Service (NWS) said it was investigating the weather event, which it described as “a weak tornado,” as well as another in Carpinteria, further north, that “damaged about 25 mobile homes.”
Tornadoes, violent rotating columns of air that touch the ground, are nature’s most violent storms, according to the US Weather Service. They can carry winds of up to 300 miles per hour and destroy a neighborhood in seconds.
The meteorological service estimates that both events registered gusts of up to 136 kilometers per hour. Likewise, “It is a significant tornado by California standards, given that it hit a populated area, and clearly wreaked havoc,” said meteorologist Daniel Swain on Twitter.
The tornadoes came on the second day of a powerful storm battering an already inundated California with more water and snow, toppling trees and knocking out power for thousands of people. Flood warnings have been issued in several communities, while stretches of others are under water.
California has been hit by a dozen atmospheric rivers in recent weeks. These moisture-laden weather systems from the Pacific have dumped sheets of snow and drenched torrential rains in regions of the West that have suffered two decades of historic drought.
Scientists say that climate change, caused by human action, exacerbates these weather shocks, causing more intense periods of drought, as well as wetter rain.