Tornado rips through US town killing 3; fires cause havoc in Texas

Apr 10, 2009, 16:50 GMT

New York - A deadly tornado ripped through the quiet Arkansas town of Mena killing three people, injuring more than 20 and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, officials said Friday.

The twister touched down late Thursday night and reduced more than 100 homes to rubble, uprooting massive trees and leaving the town of 5,400 without basic services. The tornado also damaged the local hospital, jail and schools. The local Department of Emergency Management said several hundred more homes were damaged.

'It looks like a war zone out here,' James Reeves of Polk County's Department of Emergency Management, said in a televised news conference from the devastated town, about 200 kilometres west of the state capital Little Rock.

Meteorologists warned that further extreme weather could hit the area on Friday even as rescuers were going door to door to identify other victims.

The tornado coincided with massive wind-whipped fires that swept through neighbouring Oklahoma and Texas killing two and destroying more than 100 homes. The fires occurred in the north-eastern corner of Oklahoma and in the northern Texas towns of Sunset and Stoneburg.

Interstate 35, Oklahoma's main north-south highway, was closed for several hours, as many of the fires were raging alongside it. Winds were at one point reported to be equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane, preventing firefighters from approaching the flames.

'The wind is the biggest issue, because we can't get ahead of the fires,' Jerry Lojka, the fire marshal for Midwest City, Oklahoma, told ABC News.