Three people were killed by a tornado in the state of Ohio, authorities announced Friday after storms swept through the central United States on Thursday evening, injuring dozens and causing extensive damage.
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“We now have three confirmed deaths,” Randall Dodds, the sheriff of Logan County in Ohio (north), told reporters on Friday, adding that emergency services were continuing their search.
“The devastation is such that we need to bring heavy equipment into these areas to move materials from destroyed houses, to see if there are any injured people,” the official said. “That will take time”.
A tornado warning, affecting more than 13 million people in the center of the country, was issued Thursday by the US Weather Service (NWS), which said that a “very dangerous tornado” had hit the state of Ohio.
“The damage is enormous,” said the president of the Chamber of Commerce of the city of Indian Lakes, located in this state. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life,” Amber Fagan told ABC television.
Media outlets initially provided a report of three people killed in Indiana, citing the state police as a source, but the state police withdrew this information overnight from Thursday to Friday. However, an official clarified Friday morning during a press conference that 38 people had been injured.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on social media that a tornado passed through Gallatin and Trimble counties without causing any injuries.
Tornadoes, a weather phenomenon that is as impressive as it is difficult to predict, are relatively common in the United States, particularly in the central and southern parts of the country.
