Natural disaster, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, etc.

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Wildfire season flarin' up again...

California wildfire rages
April 28, 2008 - AT least 1000 people were evacuated near Los Angeles and a wedding party was trapped at a campsite as a wildfire raged out of control.

Helicopters and planes were dumping water and fire retardant on the blaze - the first major fire of the dreaded northern summer fire season - which since yesterday has consumed 162ha in foothills near California's Santa Anita Canyon, about 25km from downtown Los Angeles.

"This is a mandatory evacuation. We do not want people to wait until the last minute and then have to leave as fire trucks are moving up the roads," Arcadia Fire Department spokeswoman Elisa Weaver said. She said 400-400 homes were evacuated and 1000 people evacuated.

"It could be four to five days before the fire is fully contained," she said. There have been no reported injuries, although firefighters remained concerned that the ferocity of the blaze - fuelled by an ongoing southern California heat wave that has seen temperatures rise to 37C - could threaten more residents living closer to Los Angeles.

"This is not a lazy fire. This fire is burning with some energy," Sierra Madre Fire Department battalion chief Michael Bamberger said. "I was waiting for the possibility of more evacuations, although it looks like we're making good progress tying off the southern end of the fire near the city's northern boundary, which is where more homes are located," Mr Bamberger said.

More California wildfire rages | NEWS.com.au

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Norfolk Va. gets tornadoes...

3 tornadoes rip through Va., hundreds of people hurt
Apr 28, `08 - Three tornadoes ripped through Virginia on Monday, with one hop-scotching across the southeastern part of the state and leaving behind a 25-mile trail of gutted homes, tossed cars and more than 200 injured residents.

Residents of some of the hardest hit neighborhoods in this town outside Norfolk were forced to evacuate their homes, with buses taking them to nearby shelters. Police closed roads, steering people away from streets with downed power lines. Downed trees and power lines covered the streets in a section of the city. A vending machine was tilted on its side, leaning up against a pile of rubble that had been the general store in a small shopping district.

"It's just a bunch of broken power poles, telephone lines and sad faces," said Richard Allbright, who works for a tree removal service in Driver and had been out for hours trying to clear the roads. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine declared a state of emergency for the areas of southeastern Virginia struck by the twisters. The National Weather Service confirmed that tornadoes struck Suffolk, Colonial Heights and Brunswick County. Meteorologist Bryan Jackson described Suffolk's as a "major tornado." Jackson said the Brunswick County tornado was estimated at 86 mph to 110 mph, and cut a 300-yard path of destruction.

The first tornado touched down around 1 p.m. in Brunswick County, said Mike Rusnak, a weather service meteorologist in Wakefield. The second struck Colonial Heights around 3:40 p.m., he said. The third touched down multiple times, between 4:30 to 5 p.m., and is believed to have caused damage over a 25-mile path from Suffolk to Norfolk, Rusnak said.

More My Way News - 3 tornadoes rip through Va., hundreds of people hurt

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Mid-west hit hard...

Twisters tear up parts of 4 states; 7 die in Arkansas
2 May `08 - Violent storms rolling across the nation's midsection unleashed tornadoes, high winds and hail in four states and killed seven people in Arkansas on Friday, including a teenager who died when a tree fell into her bedroom as she slept.

The storms late Thursday and early Friday ripped off roofs and toppled train cars near Kansas City, Mo.; pelted parts of Oklahoma with hail; and knocked over tents at a popular open-air market in east Texas. Severe thunderstorms were moving into Kentucky and could make for a wet Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Greg Carbin, a meteorologist for the national Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said as many as 25 tornadoes may have cut through stretches of Oklahoma, Arkansas, eastern Kansas and western Missouri.

Five of those killed were in two north-central Arkansas counties, Conway and Van Buren, that also saw fatalities from a devastating tornado Feb. 5. "This year it just seems like we're getting pounded," Van Buren County Sheriff Scott Bradley said. He said a man, a woman and a preschool-age child died when the storm hit their house just south of Bee Branch. "There wasn't anything left," Bradley said. "It was demolished." Another child who lived at the home had already left for school, escaping injury. A father and son died in Conway County when a possible tornado hit their mobile home. A twister demolished a chicken farm in Center Springs, leaving thousands of dead birds on the ground.

Near the Oklahoma line in a working-class neighborhood of Siloam Springs, a 15-year-old girl died in the early morning when apparent straight-line winds toppled a tree into her family's mobile home. She and her 10-year-old brother were sleeping in bunk beds; the boy survived with minor injuries. "She was on (the top bunk). He was on bottom. When it fell it just crushed her and pinned her on top of him," with a mattress between them, said Chad Tilghman, who lives across the street and helped pull the boy from the storm debris.

More Twisters tear up parts of 4 states; 7 die in Arkansas - Yahoo! News

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Cyclone Nargis rips through Burma...

Death toll in Myanmar soars above 10,000
Monday 5th May, 2008 - The Myanmar state media says it is now believed that as many as 10,000 people are dead and thousands more missing after Tropical Cyclone Nargis ripped through parts of the country, destroying homes, bringing down power lines and knocking out communications.

Earlier figures had put the death toll far lower. With some telephone lines working again and the airport at the main city, Rangoon, reopened, reports of death and destruction trickled out of Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, on Monday, giving a glimpse of the extent of the enormous devastation the cyclone inflicted on the impoverished country.

Among those arriving in Bangkok Monday, on one of the first flights out of Rangoon, was Sweden's former Minister of Democracy and Integration, Jens Orback, who told VOA the main city is paralyzed. 'The electricity went out,' he said. 'The telephones didn't work. The TV, the radio, the cellular telephones, everything was wiped out. When talking to people, they were very upset in the beginning that nobody from the military, from the police, from the fire forces were out on the street. Only private people were there with machetes, actually trying to get rid of the trees.

'I talked to some civilians on the market and they were a little bit surprised that nobody was doing anything,' he added. 'Because if there's anything that are very present in Myanmar otherwise, it's police and military but there were none of them out in the hours after the disaster.' Thousands are homeless, and much of the city remains without water or public transportation.

More Death toll in Myanmar soars above 10,000

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Cyclone kills 10,000 in one town
Myanmar cyclone toll hits 15,000, official says; Military government appeals for aid as storm’s devastation comes into view; Tropical Cyclone Nargis has killed at least 15,000 people in the reclusive, military-run country of Myanmar, the foreign minister said Tuesday.

At least 15,000 people were killed in the Myanmar cyclone and the toll was likely to rise as officials made contact with the worst-hit areas, the military government's foreign minister said on Tuesday. Foreign Minister Nyan Win said on state television that 10,000 people had died in just one town, Bogalay, as he gave the first detailed account of what is emerging as the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people were killed in Bangladesh.

"In Irrawaddy Division the death toll amounts to more than 10,000," he said in a state television broadcast, in which he also said the military government welcomed outside assistance, an unprecedented green light to governments and aid agencies who want to help with the recovery. "The missing is about 3,000. In Bogalay, the death toll is about 10,000," the minister said in the broadcast monitored outside of the Southeast Asian country.

The United Nations and the former Burma's neighbors are scrambling to deliver food, clean water and shelter to survivors after the junta, the latest face of 46 years of unbroken military rule, gave them permission. The total left homeless by the storm's 120 mph winds and 12-foot storm surge is in the several hundred thousands, United Nations aid officials say, and could run into the millions.

More Official: 15,000 dead in Myanmar cyclone - Asia-Pacific - MSNBC.com

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Death toll revised...

Burma Cyclone Death Toll Past 22,000
Tuesday, May. 06, 2008 — The cyclone death toll soared above 22,000 on Tuesday and more than 41,000 others were missing as foreign countries mobilized to rush in aid after the country's deadliest storm on record, state radio reported.

Up to 1 million people may be homeless after Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian nation early Saturday. Some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out, the World Food Program said. Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and roofless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Burma's rice bowl. "From the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened and the final death toll may be huge," Mac Pieczowski, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Yangon, said in a statement.

Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns wielding knives and axes joined Yangon residents Tuesday in clearing roads of ancient, fallen trees that were once the city's pride. And soldiers were out on the streets in large numbers for the first time since the cyclone hit, helping to clear trees as massive as 15 feet in diameter. President Bush called on Burma's military junta to allow the U.S. to help. The White House said the U.S. will send more than $3 million to help cyclone victims, up from an initial emergency contribution of $250,000. "We're prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," he said.

Bush spoke at a ceremony where he signed legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi. Burma's military regime has signaled it will welcome aid supplies for victims of a devastating cyclone, the U.N. said Tuesday, clearing the way for a major relief operation from international organizations. But U.N. workers were still awaiting their visas to enter the country, said Elisabeth Byrs of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

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Cyclone death toll could reach 250,000
May 07, 2008 - THE death toll from Burma's worst natural disaster in living memory could reach 250,000, and millions people will be homeless, a commentator says.

Cyclone Nargis savaged Burma's densely populated rice-growing Irrawaddy Delta region and Rangoon with winds of up to 200km/h at the weekend. The hardline military dictatorship which rules Burma has so far put the number of deaths at 22,000. But Larry Jagan, former BBC Asia affairs editor, says military sources put the fatalities around 30,000. "This is the worst natural disaster that Burma has suffered in living memory. It's very much like Burma's tsunami,'' he told ABC Television.

"I fear the death toll could mount to something like a quarter of a million people.'' The people had no warning and most Burmese cannot swim so the majority of them would have drowned, Mr Jagan said. "The death toll is only the tip of the iceberg,'' he said. "The real problem is that we're talking about a mass homelessness, possibly in the millions of people in the delta and in Rangoon.''

World Vision health advisor Kyi Minn, who is in Rangoon, said an eye witness told him of the devastation in the delta region. "He (an eyewitness) had to walk for two days ... because there is no transportation at all,'' Mr Minn told ABC Television. "He said on the road, he saw corpses on the road and some are floating on the river, so the scene is quite devastating.''

More Cyclone death toll could reach 250,000 | NEWS.com.au

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How to help cyclone victims...

Agencies accepting Myanmar cyclone donations
Wed., May. 7, 2008 - Here are some ways to send money to Western relief groups

The following aid agencies are accepting contributions to help those affected by the cyclone in Myanmar. Nearly 22,000 people were killed and more than 41,000 others were missing in the wake of the cyclone on Saturday. With the death toll expected to mount and as many as 1 million possibly left homeless, the international community was poised to deliver aid to the military-ruled country, which normally keeps out most foreign officials and restricts their access inside the country. Private donations are also being accepted.

The list is from InterAction, a coalition of aid agencies, which can be contacted at InterAction at (202) 667-8227 or InterAction.org.

# ADRA International
Myanmar Cyclone Fund
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904
(800) 424-ADRA ext. 2372
ADRA:

# Action Against Hunger
247 W. 37th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10018
(877) 777-1420
Convio: Site Not Found

# American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
JDC: Myanmar Cyclone Relief
P.O. Box 530
132 East 43rd St.
New York, NY 10017
(212) 687-6200
JDC

# American Jewish World Service
45 W. 36th St., 11th Floor
New York, NY 10016
(800) 889-7146
American Jewish World Service

# American Red Cross
International Response Fund
P.O. Box 37243
Washington, DC 20013
(800) HELP-NOW
American Red Cross - Preparing Communities for an Emergency and Keeping People Safe - Preparedness

More Here's how to help cyclone victims - Asia-Pacific - MSNBC.com

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Journey from horror to misery in Myanmar
7 May,`08 - Satellite images show flooding similar in magnitude to Hurricane Katrina

Some survivors arrived half-naked, others wore clothes they scavenged from the dead. Myanmar's rice-trading town of Labutta — the only spit of high ground in a vast watery landscape — has become a beacon of hope for tens of thousands who lived through the cyclone's fury, most losing homes and family members. The survivors made the journey in rickety wooden boats with makeshift sails fashioned out of blankets, dodging the bloated corpses of buffaloes and dead neighbors floating in the murky waters.

It was a journey from horror to misery for most, who described desperate hours clinging to trees and debris, followed by days of waiting for aid to arrive, in video shot for The Associated Press by a Myanmar journalist. The footage provided a first glimpse of Myanmar's worst-hit Irrawaddy delta, which has been cut off from the rest of the world since Cyclone Nargis struck Saturday, unleashing 12-foot-high storm surges that flooded the low-lying area of rice paddies and bamboo homes.

"I was hanging from an 18-foot-tall coconut tree for a long time until the weather subsided. I don't know what happened to my wife and young children," said Phan Maung, 55, sobbing as he spoke. Many survivors were shaking and had trouble telling their tales. Some were angry, others hysterical. Only a few were willing to give their names, fearful of retribution by a government already embarrassed by its failure to bring prompt relief.

More Myanmar's journey from horror to misery - Asia-Pacific - MSNBC.com

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Over a million people affected...

UN says 1.5 million people affected by Myanmar storm
Thu May 8, 2008 * U.N. says 1.5 million people "severely affected" * U.S. outraged by Myanmar government's slow response * U.N. chief says wants talks with Myanmar top general * U.S. Navy sends ships with aid toward Myanmar

The United Nations estimated 1.5 million people have been "severely affected" by the cyclone that swept through Myanmar, as the United States expressed outrage with the country's junta over delays in allowing in aid. In Myanmar, despairing survivors awaited emergency relief on Friday, a week after 100,000 people were feared killed by Cyclone Nargis as it roared across the farms and villages of the low-lying Irrawaddy delta region.

"We're outraged by the slowness of the response of the government of Burma to welcome and accept assistance," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad. "It's clear that the government's ability to deal with the situation, which is catastrophic, is limited," he told reporters on Thursday.

The U.N. food agency and Red Cross/Red Crescent said they had finally started flying in emergency relief supplies after foot-dragging by Myanmar's military rulers. The United States, however, was waiting for approval to start military flights. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters Washington was "fully prepared to help and to help right away, and it would be a tragedy if these assets" were not used.

The Navy said four ships, including the destroyer USS Mustin and the three-vessel Essex Expeditionary Strike Force, were heading for Myanmar from the Gulf of Thailand after the Essex deployed helicopters to Thailand for aid operations. Witnesses have seen little evidence of a relief effort in the delta that was swamped in Saturday's cyclone -- the worst since 1991, when 143,000 people were killed in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Towns and hamlets in the Irrawaddy Delta were helping themselves in the absence of any outside aid. "There are more than 1,000 people down there on the outskirts of Laputta," said one resident. "It's a refugee camp. Water is a big problem. So many people from here have made donations. They have given rice, vegetables and noodles." Asked if survivors were angry at the regime, he said: "They need food and family. They don't need revolution."

INFLUX OF FOREIGNERS

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UNICEF Estimates Children Account for One-Third of All Deaths From Cyclone Nargis
08 May 2008 - The U.N. Children's Fund estimates one-third of all those killed by Cyclone Nargis in Burma are children. Burmese authorities report more than 22,000 people lost their lives and more than 40,000 are still missing.

The U.N. Children's Fund says in any disaster, children suffer the most. And, the disaster, which hit Burma a few days ago, is no exception. Deputy Director of UNICEF's Office of Emergency Programs, Pierrette Vu Thi, says children are most at risk from getting sick. During a disaster, she says children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

"A number of children have died," she said. "Many are separated from their families and injured and many are traumatized. We know, let's say from statistical experience that we can estimate that about a third of the affected population are children. We are still probably underestimating the impact and the gravity of the situation on the ground." About 24 million people live in the five regions struck by Cyclone Nargis. The Irrawaddy Delta River area is the worst hit, with up to 95 percent of the population affected.

UNICEF has 130 staff members in Burma, all of whom, it says, responded within a day to the disaster. The aid workers distributed stocks of emergency supplies that had been pre-positioned in the country to the victims, including family health kits, water purification tablets, tarpaulins and mosquito nets. But, Vu Thi says these supplies are not enough to meet the critical needs. She says the agency is appealing for more than $8 million to provide assistance over the next three months.

More VOA News - UNICEF Estimates Children Account for One-Third of All Deaths From Cyclone Nargis

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Aid finally startin' to get through...

Aid Is on the Way to Devastated Myanmar but So Is Heavy Rain
May 9, 2008 - More aid is headed for isolated Myanmar after cyclone, but so is the heavy rain

More aid is on the way to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar — but so is the heavy rain. A week after Cyclone Nargis flattened low-lying villages and killed whole families at a time, the military junta finally agreed Friday to allow a U.S. cargo plane to bring in food and other supplies to the isolated country. Myanmar gave the green light after confiscating other shipments, prompting the U.N. to order a temporary freeze in shipments. The U.N. agreed to resume flights but relief workers, including Americans, were still being barred entry.

With phone lines down, roads blocked and electricity networks destroyed, it was nearly impossible to reach isolated areas in the swamped Irrawaddy delta, where the stench of unburied and decaying bodies added to the misery. Heavy rain that is forecast in the next week is certain to worsen the plight of almost 2 million people awaiting food, clean water, shelter and medicine. Diplomats and aid groups warned that the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illness and said thousands of children may have been orphaned.

The government also ignored international appeals to postpone a referendum on a controversial proposed constitution. Nationwide voting began Saturday except in the hardest hit areas, where it was being delayed two weeks. Critics have labeled the vote a foregone conclusion, saying the rules favor the junta. Survivors in one of the worst-affected areas, near the town of Bogalay about 20 miles inland, were among those fighting hunger, illness and wrenching loneliness.

More ABC News: Aid Is on the Way to Devastated Myanmar but So Is Heavy Rain

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Malaria, Diarrhea Reported After Storm Hits Myanmar
May. 8, 2008 - Health Experts Fear Widespread Illness After Malaria, Diarrhea Reported In Myanmar

Health experts are scrambling to prevent widespread illness after reports of malaria outbreaks and diarrhea surfaced in areas of Myanmar hardest hit by a cyclone, U.N. health officials said Thursday. Early estimates indicate 20 percent of children in the most devastated areas are suffering from diarrhea, and the situation could worsen, said Osamu Kunii, UNICEF's chief of health and nutrition in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city. "Most of the area is covered by dirty water," he said. "There's a lot of dead bodies and they have very poor access _ sometimes no access _ to clean drinking water or food."

Water purification tablets are unlikely to help because much of the water supply has been contaminated by saltwater, he said. It was unclear how many people may have malaria, but the mosquito-borne disease is endemic to Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta, said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, deputy director of the World Heath Organization's Southeast Asia office in New Delhi. She said 10,000 mosquito nets were being sent in. "Safe water, sanitation, safe food. These are things that we feel are priorities at the moment," Singh said.

Cyclone Nargis lashed Yangon along with the country's major rice-growing region Saturday, killing tens of thousands. The WHO team in Myanmar is working to assess the situation, and a few international technical experts are making their way into the country, Singh said. "It reminds me of the tsunami when every day the figures kept rising, and that's really the pattern here," she said, referring to the 2004 Asian tsunami, which killed nearly 230,000 people.

More Malaria, Diarrhea Reported After Storm Hits Myanmar, Health Experts Fear Widespread Illness After Malaria, Diarrhea Reported In Myanmar - CBS News

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Granny says, "Somebody needs to light a fire under the UN's butt...

Is It Time to Invade Burma?
Saturday, May. 10, 2008 The disaster in Burma presents the world with perhaps its most serious humanitarian crisis since the 2004 Asian tsunami.

By most reliable estimates, close to 100,000 people are dead. Delays in delivering relief to the victims, the inaccessibility of the stricken areas and the poor state of Burma's infrastructure and health systems mean that number is sure to rise. With as many as 1 million people still at risk, it is conceivable that the death toll will, within days, approach that of the entire number of civilians killed in the genocide in Darfur. So what is the world doing about it? Not much. The military regime that runs Burma initially signaled it would accept outside relief, but has imposed so many conditions on those who would actually deliver it that barely a trickle has made it through. Aid workers have been held at airports. U.N. food shipments have been seized. U.S. naval ships packed with food and medicine idle in the Gulf of Thailand, waiting for an all-clear that may never come.

Burma's rulers have relented slightly, agreeing Friday to let in supplies and perhaps even some foreign relief workers. The government says it will allow a US C-130 transport plane to land inside Burma Monday. But it's hard to imagine a regime this insular and paranoid accepting robust aid from the U.S. military, let alone agreeing to the presence of U.S. Marines on Burmese soil — as Thailand and Indonesia did after the tsunami. The trouble is that the Burmese haven't shown the ability or willingness to deploy the kind of assets needed to deal with a calamity of this scale — and the longer Burma resists offers of help, the more likely it is that the disaster will devolve beyond anyone's control. "We're in 2008, not 1908," says Jan Egeland, the former U.N. emergency relief coordinator. "A lot is at stake here. If we let them get away with murder we may set a very dangerous precedent."

That's why it's time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says. The Bush Administration has so far rejected the idea — "I can't imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday — but it's not without precedent: as Natsios pointed out to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid without the host government's consent in places like Bosnia and Sudan.

More Is It Time to Invade Burma? - TIME

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Myanmar junta hands out aid boxes with generals' names
Sat May 10, `08 - Myanmar's military regime distributed international aid Saturday but plastered the boxes with the names of top generals in an apparent effort to turn the relief effort for last week's devastating cyclone into a propaganda exercise.

The United Nations sent in two more planes and several trucks loaded with aid, though the junta took over its first two shipments. The government agreed to let a U.S. cargo plane bring in supplies Monday, but foreign disaster experts still were being barred entry. Despite international appeals to postpone a referendum on a controversial proposed constitution, voting began Saturday in all but the hardest hit parts of the country. With voters going to the polls, state-run television continuously ran images of top generals including junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, handing out boxes of aid at elaborate ceremonies.

"We have already seen regional commanders putting their names on the side of aid shipments from Asia, saying this was a gift from them and then distributing it in their region," said Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, which campaigns for human rights and democracy in the country. "It is not going to areas where it is most in need," he said in London. State media say 23,335 people died and 37,019 are missing from Cyclone Nargis, which submerged entire villages in the Irrawaddy delta. International aid organizations say the death toll could climb to more than 100,000 as conditions worsen.

The U.N. estimated that 1.5 million to 2 million people have been severely affected and has voiced concern about the disposal of bodies. With phone lines down, roads blocked and electricity networks destroyed, it is nearly impossible to reach isolated areas in the delta, complicated by the lack of experienced international aid workers and equipment. The junta has refused to grant access to foreign experts, saying it will only accept donations from foreign charities and governments, and then will deliver the aid on its own.

More Myanmar junta hands out aid boxes with generals' names - Yahoo! News

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Tornado season in the mid-U.S.

At least 11 dead in Central US in new round of tornadoes
11 May,`08 - A tornado that spun across the Oklahoma-Missouri border killed several people as severe storms raked the nation's heart Saturday, taking at least 11 lives, mangling buildings and trapping people in rubble in the storm-weary region.

At least six people were killed as the tornado flattened the northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher before the funnel struck about 15 miles away near Seneca, Mo., and killed at least three, authorities said. The death toll in Oklahoma could climb, said state Emergency Management spokeswoman Michelann Ooten. The tornado in Picher — a depressed and pollution-scarred mining town that many residents had already fled — caused major damage in a 20-block area, she said.

"I know they are going through the rubble, trying to find people missing," she said. "There are numerous injuries." At least five people died in southwestern Missouri after the storms plowed through, the National Weather Service said. Three people died after the Picher tornado hit near Seneca, about 15 miles away in Newton County, said meteorologist Bill Davis.

Other tornadoes were reported near McAlester and Haywood in Pittsburg County and in rural Pushmataha County, both in southeastern Oklahoma. Television footage showed some destroyed outbuildings and damaged homes west of McAlester and near Haywood. At a glass plant southwest of McAlester, the storm apparently picked up a trailer and slammed it down on garbage bins.

More At least 11 dead in Central US in new round of tornadoes - Yahoo! News