AERIAL SHOTS OF DAMAGE; HOSPITAL SCENES SHOWING INJURED PERSONS; VARIOUS SHOTS OF DESTRUCTION.




Initials



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Sixteen person were killed and hundreds of others injured in Minnesota Wednesday night (6 August) when 10 tornadoes hit rural and resort area in that midwestern state.

Communications were so disrupted by the destruction that the full extent of the damage and the total number of casualties remained unknown even at midday on Thursday.

The worst devastation took place in a 30-mile swath running between the small towns of Emily and Hill City. The tornadoes which hit this area lifted up four summer cabins near a lake in a Minneapolis suburb and dumped them into the water. The occupants were killed.

One farmer and his wife said they saved their lives by racing in to the basement just before a tornado lifted their house from above them and smashed it down some distance away.

Police reported that the shorelines of some resort lakes were masses of wrecked cabins and swamped boats.

The tornadoes hit in most places with litter or no warning. Rescuers were blocked from the worst areas by fallen trees lying highways.