Death toll rises to nine as tornado flattens US town

May 6, 2007, 14:43 GMT

Washington - At least nine people were known Sunday to have died after the Kansas town of Greensburg was flattened in minutes by a massive tornado that left nearly all its buildings destroyed.

Survivors emerging from emergency accommodation Sunday found that one of the worst natural disasters on record had as good as wiped out the town.

'Everything's gone,' said Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. 'There's no school, no hospital, no stores. everything that makes a town has disappeared - apart from the people.'

The kilometre-wide twister's trail left 95 per cent of the 1,500- population town destroyed, a spokeswoman for Kansas Rescue Services said.

President George W. Bush pledged state aid for the district, which was declared a disaster area. Apart from the dead, the many casualties included 16 people with serious injuries.

The 1,500 residents - who had just 20 minutes warning before the winds slammed in, were housed in emergency shelters. Electricity supplies were disrupted throughout the town.

The tornado hit Greensburg at 9.45 pm on Friday. Hurricane-hunter Darin Brunn described the killer tornado as 'massive and slow moving'.

Local broadcaster KWCH showed footage of survivors in the darkness and climbing out of houses that had been reduced to rubble.

They were only warned 20 minutes before the tornado struck, they said, adding that it sounded like an express train. The houses then literally exploded around them.

The tornado had overturned cars and even ripped petrol pumps out of a filling station and caused trees to snap like twigs.

Around 30 patients had been rescued from the rubble of the hospital, said a reporter.