Emergency workers raced to find survivors a day after a ferocious tornado killed at least 89 people as it cleaved the southwest Missouri city of Joplin virtually in half.
The tornado touched down Sunday evening and cut a path six miles long and a half-mile wide through the center of town, ripping off the top of a main hospital, flinging big rigs to the side of the road and reducing neighborhoods to splinters and twisted metal.
Fire chief Mitch Randles estimated that as much as one-third of the city was damaged, and said his own home was among the buildings destroyed as the twister swept through this city of about 50,000 people some 160 miles south of Kansas City.
Former Mayor Gary Shaw said Joplin looked like a war zone.
"The trees ... they're like somebody's taken a knife and cut all the bark off of them," Shaw told NPR. "We've lost tons and tons of homes, and we have people out trying to uncover the dead right now."
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