Tornadoes rip through Alabama and Georgia as death toll rises

'We are finding more bodies as we speak,' says Autauga County emergency management director

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  Cars carefully navigate downed trees and power lines on in Selma. AP

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  Rescuers raced to find survivors on Friday in the aftermath of a tornado-spawning storm system that barreled across parts of Georgia and Alabama. AP

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  Many historic homes in Selma, Alabama were damaged by the storm. AP

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  According to the Autauga County Emergency Management Agency, at least seven people were killed in Alabama after a powerful storm system generated tornadoes and swept through Alabama and Georgia. EPA

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  Scott Wayman sifts through the debris of his home in the aftermath of a tornado in the Autauga County community of Old Kingston in Prattville, Alabama. EPA

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  The tornado ripped off the roof of a Selma local business. AP

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  The tornado lifted debris to between 3km and 4.5km in the air and was one of at least 34 tornadoes reported across the US. AP

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  Debris surrounds a local business after a tornado tore through Selma city centre, in Alabama, on Thursday evening. AP

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  A giant storm system across the South spurred a tornado that shredded the walls of homes and toppled roofs in many towns in Alabama. AP

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  The tornado ripped through the city of Selma as well as nearby rural areas, uprooting trees and causing damage in seven counties. AP

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  Workers remove debris blocking railroad tracks in Selma. AP

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  Mel Gilmer surveys the damage to his business in Selma. AP

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  The ruins of a house destroyed by the tornado, in Prattville, Alabama. AP

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  Altharis Threatt stands on the porch of her daughter-in-law's tornado-ravaged trailer home in Mount Vernon, Alabama. EPA

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  Emergency crews work on downed power lines in Mount Vernon. EPA

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  The tornado left a trail of destruction across the state. AP

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  A damaged trailer home in Mount Vernon. Officials said there were six deaths across the state. EPA

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  A damaged vehicle rests on its side in front of a home in Selma. AP

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  A damaged home near Prattville. At least 20 homes in Autauga County were damaged or destroyed. AP

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  People look at a mobile home destroyed by the tornado in Mount Vernon. EPA

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  A tornado-damaged home and vehicle in Griffin, Georgia. EPA

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  Workers board up the windows of a restaurant damaged by a tornado in Griffin. EPA

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  Workers assess the damage caused by a tornado to an automotive parts warehouse in Austell, Georgia. EPA

Rescue teams searched for missing people in Alabama on Friday after nine were confirmed dead following a series of tornadoes that rolled through the southern US state and other parts of the South.

Seven deaths were reported in Autauga County, with more casualties likely to be confirmed, said Ernie Baggett, the county's emergency management director.

“We are finding more bodies as we speak,” he told Reuters.

Autauga was one of six counties for which Alabama Governor Kay Ivey declared a state of emergency.

Another two deaths were reported in neighbouring Georgia, where severe winds from a giant storm system that swept across the southern US on Thursday knocked out power to tens of thousands of people in the state.

The tornado threw several mobile homes in the air and at least 12 people were taken to hospital with injuries, Mr Baggett said.

“It really did a good bit of damage. This is the worst that I’ve seen here in this county.”

In Georgia, a five-year-old child was killed and an adult passenger was in critical condition after a tree fell on a car, Butts County Coroner Lacey Prue said.

In the same county, south-east of Atlanta, the storm appeared to have knocked a freight train off its tracks.

Officials in Griffin, south of Atlanta, told local news outlets that a number people were trapped inside a residential complex after trees fell on it. A man in Griffin was trapped for hours under a tree that fell on his house before firefighters cut him free. A high school in the city was damaged, and pupils at four middle schools had to wait for their parents to pick up them after officials decided it was unsafe to run buses.

School systems in at least six Georgia counties on the southern fringes of metro Atlanta cancelled classes on Friday.

Nationwide, there were dozens of separate tornado reports from the National Weather Service, with a handful of tornado warnings still in effect in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina as of Thursday evening. However, the reports were not yet confirmed and some of them could later be classified as wind damage after assessments are done in coming days.

In Selma, a city that gained fame during the US civil rights movement in the 1960s, a tornado cut a wide path through the city centre, where brick buildings collapsed, oak trees were uprooted, cars were on their side and power lines were left dangling.

Selma Mayor James Perkins said no fatalities had been reported, but several people were seriously injured.

“We have a lot of downed power lines,” he said. “There is a lot of danger on the streets.”

With widespread power failures, the Selma City Council held a meeting on the street, using lights from mobile phones, to declare a state of emergency. A high school was opened as a shelter, officials said.

About 16,000 customers were without power in Alabama as of Friday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks failures nationwide. In Georgia, about 20,000 customers were without electricity after the storm system carved a path across counties to the south of Atlanta.

In Kentucky, the National Weather Service in Louisville said that an EF-1 tornado struck Mercer County and that crews were surveying damage in a handful of other counties.

Tornadoes, a weather phenomenon as impressive as they are difficult to predict, are relatively common in the United States, especially in the central and southern parts of the country.

In late November, 36 tornadoes were reported in Alabama and Mississippi, leaving two people dead.

Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University, said three factors came together to make Thursday’s tornado outbreak unusual and damaging: a natural La Nina weather cycle, warming of the Gulf of Mexico that was probably related to climate change, and a decades-long shift of tornadoes from the west to east.

The La Nina, a cooling of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide, was a factor in making a wavy jet stream that brought a cold front through. But moisture was also needed for a tornado outbreak, Dr Gensini said.

He said the air in the US south-east was usually fairly dry at this time of year but, probably because of unusually warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, the dew point was twice what it is normally. That moisture hit the cold front and everything was in place, Dr Gensini said.

Agencies contributed to this report