Showing posts with label death toll. Show all posts

Sunday, June 2, 2013

The Philippine Sea Plate Is Moving

M6.2 - 22km SSE of Buli, Taiwan2013-06-02 05:43:04 UTC

M5.6 - 5km ENE of Carmen, Philippines2013-06-01 14:10:07 UTC

Tectonic Summary

Seismotectonics of the Philippine Sea and Vicinity

The Philippine Sea plate is bordered by the larger Pacific and Eurasia plates and the smaller Sunda plate. The Philippine Sea plate is unusual in that its borders are nearly all zones of plate convergence. The Pacific plate is subducted into the mantle, south of Japan, beneath the Izu-Bonin and Mariana island arcs, which extend more than 3,000 km along the eastern margin of the Philippine Sea plate. This subduction zone is characterized by rapid plate convergence and high-level seismicity extending to depths of over 600 km. In spite of this extensive zone of plate convergence, the plate interface has been associated with few great (M>8.0) ‘megathrust’ earthquakes. This low seismic energy release is thought to result from weak coupling along the plate interface (Scholz and Campos, 1995). These convergent plate margins are also associated with unusual zones of back-arc extension (along with resulting seismic activity) that decouple the volcanic island arcs from the remainder of the Philippine Sea Plate (Karig et al., 1978; Klaus et al., 1992).

South of the Mariana arc, the Pacific plate is subducted beneath the Yap Islands along the Yap trench. The long zone of Pacific plate subduction at the eastern margin of the Philippine Sea Plate is responsible for the generation of the deep Izu-Bonin, Mariana, and Yap trenches as well as parallel chains of islands and volcanoes, typical of circum-pacific island arcs. Similarly, the northwestern margin of the Philippine Sea plate is subducting beneath the Eurasia plate along a convergent zone, extending from southern Honshu to the northeastern coast of Taiwan, manifested by the Ryukyu Islands and the Nansei-Shoto (Ryukyu) trench. The Ryukyu Subduction Zone is associated with a similar zone of back-arc extension, the Okinawa Trough. At Taiwan, the plate boundary is characterized by a zone of arc-continent collision, whereby the northern end of the Luzon island arc is colliding with the buoyant crust of the Eurasia continental margin offshore China.

Along its western margin, the Philippine Sea plate is associated with a zone of oblique convergence with the Sunda Plate. This highly active convergent plate boundary extends along both sides the Philippine Islands, from Luzon in the north to the Celebes Islands in the south. The tectonic setting of the Philippines is unusual in several respects: it is characterized by opposite-facing subduction systems on its east and west sides; the archipelago is cut by a major transform fault, the Philippine Fault; and the arc complex itself is marked by active volcanism, faulting, and high seismic activity. Subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate occurs at the eastern margin of the archipelago along the Philippine Trench and its northern extension, the East Luzon Trough. The East Luzon Trough is thought to be an unusual example of a subduction zone in the process of formation, as the Philippine Trench system gradually extends northward (Hamburger et al., 1983). On the west side of Luzon, the Sunda Plate subducts eastward along a series of trenches, including the Manila Trench in the north, the smaller less well-developed Negros Trench in the central Philippines, and the Sulu and Cotabato trenches in the south (Cardwell et al., 1980). At its northern and southern terminations, subduction at the Manila Trench is interrupted by arc-continent collision, between the northern Philippine arc and the Eurasian continental margin at Taiwan and between the Sulu-Borneo Block and Luzon at the island of Mindoro. The Philippine fault, which extends over 1,200 km within the Philippine arc, is seismically active. The fault has been associated with major historical earthquakes, including the destructive M7.6 Luzon earthquake of 1990 (Yoshida and Abe, 1992). A number of other active intra-arc fault systems are associated with high seismic activity, including the Cotabato Fault and the Verde Passage-Sibuyan Sea Fault (Galgana et al., 2007).

Relative plate motion vectors near the Philippines (about 80 mm/yr) is oblique to the plate boundary along the two plate margins of central Luzon, where it is partitioned into orthogonal plate convergence along the trenches and nearly pure translational motion along the Philippine Fault (Barrier et al., 1991). Profiles B and C reveal evidence of opposing inclined seismic zones at intermediate depths (roughly 70-300 km) and complex tectonics at the surface along the Philippine Fault.

Several relevant tectonic elements, plate boundaries and active volcanoes, provide a context for the seismicity presented on the main map. The plate boundaries are most accurate along the axis of the trenches and more diffuse or speculative in the South China Sea and Lesser Sunda Islands. The active volcanic arcs (Siebert and Simkin, 2002) follow the Izu, Volcano, Mariana, and Ryukyu island chains and the main Philippine islands parallel to the Manila, Negros, Cotabato, and Philippine trenches.

Seismic activity along the boundaries of the Philippine Sea Plate (Allen et al., 2009) has produced 7 great (M>8.0) earthquakes and 250 large (M>7) events. Among the most destructive events were the 1923 Kanto, the 1948 Fukui and the 1995 Kobe (Japan) earthquakes (99,000, 5,100, and 6,400 casualties, respectively), the 1935 and the 1999 Chi-Chi (Taiwan) earthquakes (3,300 and 2,500 casualties, respectively), and the 1976 M7.6 Moro Gulf and 1990 M7.6 Luzon (Philippines) earthquakes (7,100 and 2,400 casualties, respectively). There have also been a number of tsunami-generating events in the region, including the Moro Gulf earthquake, whose tsunami resulted in more than 5000 deaths.

More information on regional seismicity and tectonics

source: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000hbde#summary

Earthquakes kill 2 in Taiwan, injure 33 in the Philippines

COMMENTS (0)

SIZE: + / -

Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on google_plusone_share Share on reddit Share on linkedin Share on stumbleupon Share on email More Sharing Services

Associated Press

Sunday, June 2, 2013

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A strong earthquake jolted Taiwan on Sunday, killing two people and injuring at least 21 others and causing panicked shoppers to rush out of a shaking multistory department store, officials said.

Another earthquake jolted the southern Philippines late Saturday, injuring at least 33 people and damaging more than 140 houses.

The tremor that hit Taiwan on Sunday afternoon was felt all over the island, but most severely in the central and southern regions. The magnitude-6.3 quake’s epicenter was near Jenai township in Nantou County in central Taiwan, about 155 miles south of Taipei, the Central Weather Bureau said.

In Mountain Ali in the southern part of the island, a man was killed by a rockslide while driving a car on a mountain road, the Taiwan Fire Agency said in a statement. Another man was killed by a falling rock when he was working at a farm in Chushan, near the epicenter.

Rockslides at a scenic mountainous area near the epicenter injured several people, the agency said. In all, 21 people were injured by the earthquake, many by fallen objects.

Workers removed fallen rocks and repaired a damaged mountain road in Nantou, allowing more than 100 stranded tourists to pass.

Shoppers screamed and ran out of a 12-story department store that shook violently for nearly a minute, TV stations reported from the central city of Taichung. Households elsewhere in central Taiwan reported cracks on the walls or ceilings falling, the reports said.

The Central Weather Bureau said the tremor had a relatively shallow depth of 6 miles. The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.5.

Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan, but most are minor and cause little or no damage. Nantou is near the epicenter of a magnitude-7.6 earthquake that struck Taiwan in 1999 and killed more than 2,300 people.

In the southern Philippines, a magnitude-5.7 earthquake rattled North Cotabato province and nearby areas late Saturday as people slept. The temblor damaged more than 140 houses and several school buildings and set off a landslide that partially blocked a road with boulders, officials said.

At least 33 people, including children, were injured by collapsed walls and falling debris in the hard-hit North Cotabato villages of Kimadzil and Kibugtongan, said Hermes Daquipa, a Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology official who joined a government team that surveyed the hilly villages.

The quake, which was set off by the movement of a nearby fault, damaged the approaches to two bridges and concrete pipes that cut off water supply to the two villages. Some of the damaged school buildings will not be able to be used for Monday’s resumption of classes after a summer break for safety reasons, North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Tolentino-Mendoza said.

Many residents remained jittery Sunday because of continuing aftershocks, said Ms. Tolentino-Mendoza, who added that she scrambled out of her home like other villagers when the ground started to shake and objects fell from shelves.

“It’s a big relief that no motorist was passing through our highway when boulders rolled down from the mountainside,” she said.

The Philippine archipelago is located in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where earthquakes and volcanic activity are common. A magnitude-7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people on the northern island of Luzon in 1990.

EARTHQUAKES

Quakes jolt Philippines, Taiwan

Earthquakes have jolted Taiwan, the southern Philippines and ocean depths off the Solomon Islands. At least 33 Filipinos were hurt as they slept. In Taiwan falling rocks killed a Taiwanese mountain climber.

A magnitude 5.7 earthquake rattled the southern Philippines on Sunday, injuring at least 33 residents as they slept. A stronger 6.3 magnitude quake was felt across Taiwan on Sunday, especially in central and southern regions. It killed one person and injured at least 18 others.

Hours earlier, a 5.5-magnitude quake rattled the Pacific seabed off the Solomon Islands but triggered no reports of damage or Tsunami alert.

source: http://www.dw.de/quakes-jolt-philippines-taiwan/a-16853941

Thursday, May 30, 2013

New Deadly Mystery Virus. New Pandemic?

If you'll recall, I reported on mass animal deaths back on April 12, 2013 (REFER TO POST HERE). One of the mass animal deaths listed was located in China, where there were bloated pigs floating in some waterways and the deaths were only explained as "respiratory failure due to inhaling toxic gas" (REFER TO CHINA NEWS POST HERE). Well, it turns out that the numbers of dead pigs were much higher than I first posted and there were dead dogs as well. Additionally, the local authorities could not determine for certain that the animals actually died because of inhalation of toxic gas and now there is more proof that they may have been sick with the newest mystery virus called H7N9.

The World Health Organization does not have a handle on this illness, except to say that it is not SARS, but is symptomatically similar to SARS and that it can be transmitted person-to-person. So far, this illness has spread in clusters in many countries.

Also, the WHO says that they (and we) are not ready for a mass flu outbreak. They said that one day and then the next said that they have the outbreak under control. Have you seen Survivors? This is so similar to that case scenario that it is somewhat nerve-racking. Do we trust that they have it under control, or do we trust that they have our panic under control?

Here is more information and commentary regarding this illness (H7N9). The information is suspect because it is not consistent, which makes the remarks that the World Health Organization said even harder to believe. As far as I am concerned, there is no panic. However, I don't trust that this new strain is under control.

Is this the next pandemic? Tale of mystery virus unfolds like a movie plot (Commentary)

A duck stands near a warning sign at an amusement park in Beijing, China, Wednesday, April 3, 2013. Scientists taking a first look at the genetics of the bird flu strain that recently killed two men in China said Wednesday the virus could be harder to track than its better-known cousin H5N1 because it might be able to spread silently among poultry without notice. The bird virus also seems to have adapted to be able to be able to sicken mammals like pigs. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)By Washington Post
on April 07, 2013 at 8:11 AM

By LAURIE GARRETT

WASHINGTON — Here’s how it would happen. Children playing along an urban river bank would spot hundreds of grotesque, bloated pig carcasses bobbing downstream. Hundreds of miles away, angry citizens would protest the rising stench from piles of dead ducks and swans, their rotting bodies collecting by the thousands along river banks. And three unrelated individuals would stagger into three different hospitals, gasping for air. Two would quickly die of severe pneumonia and the third would lay in critical condition in an intensive care unit for many days. Government officials would announce that a previously unknown virus had sickened three people, at least, and killed two of them. And while the world was left to wonder how the pigs, ducks, swans, and people might be connected, the World Health Organization would release deliberately terse statements, offering little insight.

It reads like a movie plot — I should know, as I was a consultant for Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion.” But the facts delineated are all true, and have transpired over the last six weeks in China.

The events could, indeed, be unrelated, and the new virus, a form of influenza denoted as H7N9, may have already run its course, infecting just three people and killing two.

Or this could be how pandemics begin.

On March 10, residents of China’s powerhouse metropolis, Shanghai, noticed some dead pigs floating among garbage flotsam in the city’s Huangpu River.

The vile carcasses appeared in Shanghai’s most important tributary of the mighty Yangtze, a 71-mile river that is edged by the Bund, the city’s main tourist area, and serves as the primary source of drinking water and ferry travel for the 23 million residents of the metropolis and its millions of visitors.

The vision of a few dead pigs on the surface of the Huangpu was every bit as jarring for local Chinese as porcine carcasses would be for French strolling the Seine, Londoners along the Thames, or New Yorkers looking from the Brooklyn Bridge down on the East River.

And the nightmarish sight soon worsened, with more than 900 animal bodies found by sunset on that Sunday evening.

The first few pig carcass numbers soon swelled into the thousands, turning Shanghai spring into a horror show that by March 20 would total more than 15,000 dead animals.

The river zigzags its way from Zhejiang province, just to the south of Shanghai, a farming region inhabited by some 54 million people, and a major pork-raising district of China. Due to scandals over recent years in the pork industry, including substitution of rendered pig intestines for a toxic chemical, sold as heparin blood thinner that proved lethal to American cardiac patients, Chinese authorities had put identity tags on pigs’ ears.

The pig carcasses were swiftly traced back to key farms in Zhejiang, and terrified farmers admitted that they had dumped the dead animals into the Huangpu.

Few Chinese asked, “What killed the pigs?,” because river pollution is so heinous across China that today people simply assume manufacturing chemicals or pesticides fill the nation’s waterways, and are responsible for all such mysterious animals demises.

The Yangtze, which feeds Shanghai’s Huangpu, has copper pollution levels that are 100 times higher than U.S. safety standards, and leather tanning facilities along the river have notoriously been responsible for toxic waste, including chromium.

And across China — especially in Beijing — air pollution was so bad in January and February that pollution particulate levels routinely peaked at higher than 10 times the U.S. safety standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

When I was in Beijing in late January, the air pollution was so thick that it visually looked like fog, obscuring all sunlight and even skyscrapers located less than three city blocks away.

So, hideous as the pig carcasses might be, Shanghai residents tended to shrug them off as yet another example of the trade-offs China is making, pitting prosperity against pollution.

Mystery Coronavirus Renamed Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus As Two Saudi Healthcare Workers Fall Ill

As the new coronavirus spreads and infects more people, especially those who have traveled to Saudi Arabia, a formal name is finally given to the faceless killer.

Mystery virus

The Coronavirus seen under an electron miscroscope. Photo: AFP

The WHO's assistant director general for health security and the environment, Keiji Fukuda, told a Riyadh news conference on Sunday the new virus posed an "important and major challenge" for countries affected and the world generally.

He said experts were still grappling to understand all aspects of the virus and how humans become infected, stressing, however, that "this new virus is not the SARS virus."

"This is a new infection and there are also many gaps in our knowledge that will inevitably take time to fill in," a WHO statement cited Mr Fukuda as saying.

"Of most concern, however, is the fact that the different clusters seen in multiple countries increasingly support the hypothesis that when there is close contact this novel coronavirus can transmit from person-to-person," he said.

"This pattern of person-to-person transmission has remained limited to some small clusters, and so far, there is no evidence that this virus has the capacity to sustain generalised transmission in communities."

World not ready for mass flu outbreak, says WHO

WHO deputy chief Keiji Fukuda. Photo: AFP

The world is unprepared for a massive virus outbreak, the deputy chief of the World Health Organisation warned on Tuesday, amid fears that H7N9 bird flu striking China could morph into a form that spreads easily among people.

Keiji Fukuda told delegates at a WHO meeting that despite efforts since an outbreak of another form of avian influenza, H1N1, in 2009-10, far more contingency planning was essential.

Rapid-reaction systems were crucial, given that health authorities’ efforts are already hampered by lack of knowledge about such diseases, he insisted.“Even though work has been done since that time, the world is not ready for a large, severe outbreak,” Fukuda said.

“When people get hit with an emerging disease, you can’t just go to a book and know what to do,” he said.

According to the latest official data, H7N9 avian influenza has infected 130 people in China, and killed 35, since it was found in humans for the first time in March.

It is one of a vast array of flu viruses carried by birds, the overwhelming majority of which pose little or no risk to humans.

Experts are struggling to understand how it spread to people, amid fears that it could adapt into a form that can be transmitted easily from human to human.

READ MORE HERE

H7N9 bird flu appears contained, UN health experts say

International experts praise China's efforts, but note outbreak has cost economy US$6.5b

Chinese Health Mininster Li Bin. Photo: Xinhua

The H7N9 virus appears to have been brought under control in China largely due to restrictions at bird markets, but caused some US$6.5 billion in losses to the economy, UN experts said.

Health authorities worldwide must be on the lookout to detect the virus, which could still develop the ability to spread easily among humans and cause a deadly influenza pandemic, the experts said.

The new bird flu virus is known to have infected 130 people in mainland China since emerging in March, including 36 who died, but no cases have been detected since early May, Health Minister Li Bin told the World Health Organisation.

One case was found in Taiwan in April, making a total of 131.

"The immediate outbreak has been controlled, but it is also unlikely that virus has simply disappeared. We believe we need go another autumn/winter/spring season to know," said Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director general for health security.

"We also have high concern over the potential, I stress the potential, to gain the ability to sustain transmissibility."

There was no evidence of sustained spread among people and "most cases probably resulted from infected poultry or perhaps contamination related to live poultry markets", Fukuda said.

Drug-resistant strains of H7N9 bird flu discovered

A worker catches a live chicken at a poultry market in Shanghai, China on April 5, 2013. / AP PHOTO

Drug-resistant cases of a deadly new strain of bird flu have been identified.

In a study published in The Lancet on May 28, researchers detailed three patients with the new avian flu strain that's hit China, known as H7N9, whose sickness could not be treated by Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and similar drugs.

"The apparent ease with which antiviral resistance emerges in A/H7N9 viruses is concerning; it needs to be closely monitored and considered in future pandemic response plans," the authors wrote.

Play VIDEO

Two new viruses threaten global outbreaks

H7N9 is the name for a subtype of influenza viruses that is often found in birds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, a new H7N9 strain discovered in China looks different from previous strains. Prior to this China strain, H7N9 had never been detected in humans. TheWorld Health Organization said 131 people have been infected with the new bird flu as of May 24, including 36 deaths.

There is no solid evidence yet of human-to-human transmission, though there is concern the virus can mutate to a strain spread more easily among people.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Death Toll Continues To Rise In Oklahoma Tornado Ravaged Areas.

Latest Updates on Tornado That Killed at Least 37 Near Oklahoma City

By JENNIFER PRESTON

Last Updated, 8:30 p.m. Video and images taken in the aftermath of a tornado that tore through a suburb south of Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon show a wide swath of destruction. At least 37 people have been killed, officials said.

Entire neighborhoods of single-family homes have been leveled. Students and teachers are feared trapped inside Plaza Towers Elementary School, according to reports from KFOR-TV, which is streaming live coverage online from Moore, Okla.

Lance West, a reporter and anchor for KFOR-TV, was overcome by emotion as he reported live from the scene at Plaza Towers. As parents rushed to the scene, search and rescue crews were calling out for survivors as they combed through what Mr. West said was a 10-foot mountain of debris at the school. He said that the school’s cinder-block walls had collapsed and that the roof was missing.

Mr. West said that fourth, fifth and sixth graders were accounted for at Plaza Towers, but that some students and staff members may be trapped inside. Students at another nearby elementary school, Briarwood, have been accounted for.

In the suburban neighborhood near the school, reporters on the scene said multiple homes were leveled.

Natalie Ruhl, a television producer from Oklahoma City, posted photos on Twitter of the destruction in Moore.

Massive tornado rips through Oklahoma City suburb

PHOTO/SUE OGROCKI

A woman carries her child through a field near the collapsed Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., Monday, May 20, 2013

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you are on a mobile device and can't view the video, go to USTREAM.

To view footage of the tornado on a mobile device or tablet, click here.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — A monstrous tornado at least a half-mile wide roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods with winds up to 200 mph, setting buildings on fire and landing a direct blow on an elementary school.

There were no confirmed deaths, but at least 60 people were reported hurt, including more than a dozen children. Rescuers mounted a desperate rescue effort at the school, pulling children from heaps of debris and carrying them to a triage center.

The storm laid waste to scores of buildings in Moore, south of the city. Block after block of the community lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside.

The National Weather Service issued an initial finding that the tornado was an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale, the second most-powerful type of twister.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said several injured children from the school had been taken to a hospital for treatment. She deployed 80 National Guard members to assist with search-and-rescue operations and activated extra highway patrol officers.

Fallin also spoke with President Barack Obama, who offered the nation's help and gave Fallin a direct line to his office.

Many land lines to stricken areas were down and cellphone traffic was congested. The storm was so massive that it will take time to establish communications between rescuers and state officials, the governor said.

In video of the storm, the dark funnel cloud could be seen marching slowly across the green landscape. As it churned through the community, the twister scattered shards of wood, pieces of insulation, awnings, shingles and glass all over the streets.

Volunteers and first responders raced to search the debris for survivors.

At Plaza Towers Elementary School, the storm tore off the roof, knocked down walls and turned the playground into a mass of twisted plastic and metal.

Several children were pulled alive from the rubble. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain to the triage center in the parking lot.

James Rushing, who lives across the street from the school, heard reports of the approaching tornado and ran to the school, where his 5-year-old foster son, Aiden, attends classes. Rushing believed he would be safer there.

"About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart," he said.

The students were placed in the restroom.

Oklahoma City Police Capt. Dexter Nelson said downed power lines and open gas lines posed a risk in the aftermath of the system.

Monday's powerful tornado loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the region in May 1999.

The weather service estimated that the storm that Monday's tornado was at least a half-mile wide. The 1999 storm had winds clocked at 300 mph.

Kelsey Angle, a weather service meteorologist in Kansas City, Mo., said it's unusual for two such powerful tornadoes to track roughly the same path.

Monday's devastation in Oklahoma came almost exactly two years after an enormous twister ripped through the city of Joplin, Mo., killing 158 people and injuring hundreds more.

That May 22, 2011, tornado was the deadliest in the United States since modern tornado record keeping began in 1950, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Before Joplin, the deadliest modern tornado was June 1953 in Flint, Mich., when 116 people died

Mile-wide tornado touches down near Oklahoma City, causing damage for second day in a row

Published May 20, 2013

FoxNews.com

A mile-wide tornado churned through Oklahoma City's suburbs Monday afternoon, causing significant property damage for the second day in a row, as part of a severe weather outbreak that was expected to spread in other parts of the Plains and Midwest.

A massive black-and-blue cloud dragged across the landscape just south of Will Rogers World Airport.

Television video showed debris from homes and businesses being carried aloft as the twister rolled through Moore, a community on the south side of Oklahoma City. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

In advance of the storm, the Oklahoma House of Representatives stopped work so Capitol employees could take shelter in the basement. Television and radio broadcasters urged residents to take shelter because the storm's strength and size

"We're just waiting to see what happens. It's a mile-wide tornado. It's still grinding out," said Mark Meyers, a spokesman for the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office. "We are currently on standby for tornado response. Whatever happens, we'll be ready to respond."

The strongest winds on earth -- 302 mph -- were recorded near Moore during a tornado on May 3, 1999.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman had predicted a major outbreak of severe weather Monday in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

On Sunday, at least two people were killed and 29 were injured in Oklahoma as a severe storm system generated several tornadoes Sunday in Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa, leveling neighborhoods and sending frightened residents scurrying for shelter as extreme conditions are expected to linger across the Midwest.

The tornadoes, high winds and hail have been part of a massive, northeastward-moving storm system that has stretched from Texas to Minnesota.

"It's pretty bad. It's pretty much wiped out."

- Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth

At least four separate twisters touched down in central Oklahoma late Sunday afternoon, including one near the town of Shawnee, 35 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, that laid waste to much of a mobile home park.

Oklahoma state medical examiner's office spokeswoman Amy Elliott on Monday identified the two people who are confirmed to have been killed as 79-year-old Glen Irish and 76-year-old Billy Hutchinson. Both men were from Shawnee.

Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth said one man, later identified as Irish, was found dead out in the open at Steelman Estates, but the sheriff didn't have details on where he had lived.

"You can see where there's absolutely nothing, then there are places where you have mobile home frames on top of each other, debris piled up," Booth said. "It looks like there's been heavy equipment in there on a demolition tour ... It's pretty bad. It's pretty much wiped out."

A storm spotter told the National Weather Service that the tornado "scoured" the landscape in the park and an area along Interstate 40. Officials said drivers should expect delays along the highway in Shawnee as crews continue to clean up storm debris. Westbound Interstate 40 was closed Sunday night at U.S. 177 after storms ripped through the area. U.S. 177 was also shut down because of vehicle accidents caused by the severe weather.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation said northbound U.S. 177 at I-40 was reopened as of 7 a.m. Monday.

Westbound traffic on I-40 is narrowed to one lane, but all lanes are expected to reopen later Monday morning.

Across the state, 21 people were injured, not including those who suffered bumps and bruises and chose not to visit a hospital, said Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

Gov. Mary Fallin declared an emergency for 16 Oklahoma counties because of the severe storms and flooding. The declaration lets local governments acquire goods quickly to respond to their residents' needs and puts the state in line for federal help if it becomes necessary.

In Enid, Okla. on Saturday, a police officer was injured in high winds when his cruiser was struck by an object. Area emergency manager Mike Honigsberg told The Oklahoman that the car may have been hit by a cattle trough lifted by the wind. In Oklahoma City, an officer was trapped for a time when surrounded by fallen utility lines.

Another tornado grazed the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond Sunday afternoon, dropping hail as large as a grapefruit and damaging roofs and structures before heading east. Aerial flyovers in Wellston, northeast of Oklahoma City, showed significant property damage.

"I knew it was coming," said Edmond resident Randy Grau, who huddled with his wife and two young boys in their Edmond home's safe room when the tornado hit. He said he peered out his window as the weather worsened and believed he saw a flock of birds heading down the street.

"Then I realized it was swirling debris," Grau said. "That's when we shut the door of the safe room. I probably had them in there for 10 minutes."

Dozen of counties in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri were placed under tornado watches and warnings that were in effect through late Sunday.

In Wichita, Kan., a tornado touched down near Mid-Content Airport on the city's southwest side shortly before 4 p.m., knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses but bypassing the most populated areas of Kansas' biggest city. The Wichita tornado was an EF1 -- the strength of tornado on the enhanced Fujita scale -- with winds of 110 mph, according to the weather service.

Carl Brewer, the mayor of Wichita, told Fox News that the city was hit harder by high winds and golf ball-sized hail than anything from the tornado.

"That alone, and the rain, actually just really did a number on the city," he said. "It was so bad you think a tornado came through."

Brewer said hail ripped through the sides of houses in Wichita, in addition to breaking windows and damaging cars.

Jim Raulston, of Wichita, said the ferocious winds slammed the hailstones into his home.

"It was just unbelievable how the hail and everything was just coming straight sideways," Raulston said.

The National Weather Service also reported two tornadoes touched down in Iowa Sunday — near Huxley and Earlham. Damage included the loss of some cattle when the storm blew over a barn on a farm in Mitchell County. Some 11,000 homes were without power early Monday.

Briarwood, Plaza Towers Elementary Schools Hit By Tornado In Moore, Oklahoma, Rescue Efforts Underway

Two elementary schools were directly impacted by a massive tornado in the Oklahoma City area on Monday, according to local media reports.

Plaza Towers Elementary School was flattened by the storm and Briarwood Elementary School was also

Powerful tornadoes strike in four central U.S. states

severely hit. It is unclear at this time how many people were at the schools when the damage occurred, but search and rescue efforts are underway.

"Apparently some kids were being sheltered there [at Plaza Towers]," local TV station KFOR reported during its live coverage of the tornado. The local news outlet laterconfirmed that children were being pulled from debris at the Plaza Towers site.

According to News 9, an Oklahoma City Police Department representative has stated that there are currently no reports of injuries at the Briarwood Elementary scene. The school did, however, suffer "extensive damage."

UPDATE: The AP is reporting that several children have been pulled out of the rubble alive at Plaza Towers Elementary School.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/elementary-school-moore-oklahoma-tornado_n_3308844.html

Powerful tornadoes strike in four central U.S. states

A storm chaser gets close to a tornadic thunderstorm, one of several tornadoes that touched down in Kansas May 19, 2013. REUTERS-Gene Blevins

Storm chaser videographer and photographer Brad Mack records a tornado near a home in South Haven, in Kansas May 19, 2013. REUTERS-Gene Blevins

An aerial view of the damage in the aftermath of tornadoes that touched down just outside of Wellston, Oklahoma, May 19, 2013, in this still image provided by KFOR-TV. Courtesy of KFOR-TV-Handout via Reuters

By Chris Francescani

Mon May 20, 2013 4:16pm EDT

(Reuters) - A massive storm front swept north through the central United States on Sunday, hammering the region with fist-sized hail, blinding rain and tornadoes, including a half-mile wide twister that struck near Oklahoma City. News reports said at least one person had died.

By 9:30 p.m. Central Standard Time, more than two dozen tornadoes had been spotted in parts of Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and local news reports. Hail stones, some as large as baseballs, were reported from Georgia to Minnesota, the NOAA said.

Fox News reported that one person was killed in Shawnee, Oklahoma, east of Oklahoma City.

Police in Shawnee could not immediately be reached to confirm the report.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared 16 counties of the state disaster areas, according to Jerry Lojka, a spokesman for the state emergency management department.

By late Sunday, power outages were being reported in several Oklahoma counties, according to the Tulsa World newspaper.

Meteorologists had been warning for days that a powerful front was expected to blast through the region, spawning potentially destructive twisters. The extreme weather is expected to continue on Monday, National Weather Service advisories said.

National Weather Service offices across the region issued one urgent warning after another, throughout the afternoon and into the evening.

An extreme weather system stretching from north Texas to Minnesota had been building for hours on Sunday when the day's first tornado touched down near Wichita, Kansas at 3:45 pm Central Standard time, according to a weather service alert.

Just after 6 p.m., the Norman, Oklahoma office posted a Twitter alert on a tornado about to strike Pink, a town on the edge of Oklahoma City.