(Washington) A violent tornado struck Friday Little Rock, the big city of the State of Arkansas, in the south of the United States, causing significant damage and several injuries, according to the authorities, who do not deplore for the moment no death.
“Extensive damage has occurred in central Arkansas,” Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Twitter, declaring a state of emergency in her state and mobilizing the National Guard.
“We know 24 people have been hospitalized in Little Rock, and we are not aware of any deaths at this time,” town mayor Frank Scott wrote on Twitter.
In the wake of the tornado, overturned cars, huge uprooted trees, telephone poles broken in two… Lara Farrar, journalist for a local economic publication, told AFP by telephone that she was “totally shocked” when she went to see the damage near her home in Little Rock.
“Some of the buildings had their roofs completely blown off,” she testifies, sharing images of destroyed houses, the walls partially torn down, the trees on the ground.
“The neighborhood was frankly ruined, completely destroyed,” she adds, referring to a front of devastation less than 500 meters wide, with “very little damage” outside.
PHOTO ANDREW DEMILLO, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The roof of a house blew off due to the force of the winds.
Governor Sanders also reported “extensive damage” in the community of Wynne, east of Little Rock.
Videos from local journalists shared on social media show a vast, swirling black mass tearing through the skies of this agglomeration of 200,000 people on Friday afternoon.
Around 7:50 p.m. (Eastern time) Friday, some 90,000 people were without power in Arkansas, and 45,000 in the neighboring state of Iowa, according to the specialized site PowerOutage.us.
Tornadoes, a meteorological phenomenon as impressive as they are difficult to predict, are common in the United States, especially in the center and south of the country.
A week ago, a tornado swept through Mississippi, killing 25 people and causing immense property damage. President Joe Biden visited the site on Friday.
As of December 2021, around 80 people had lost their lives after tornadoes hit Kentucky.