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JOPLIN, Mo. — At least 89 people were killed in the southwest Missouri city of Joplin after a massive tornado tore through town, authorities said on Monday.
City manager Mark Rohr announced the number at a pre-dawn news conference outside the wreckage of a hospital that took a direct hit from Sunday's storm.
Rohr said the twister cut a path nearly six miles long and more than a half-mile wide through the center of town.
Much of the city's south side was leveled, with businesses, homes and restaurants reduced to ruins.
The storm blasted a four-mile path and slammed into the city with cataclysmic force, ripping into a hospital, upending cars and leaving only a forest of splintered tree trunks behind where entire neighborhoods once stood.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43132174/ns/today-weather/t/huge-twister-kills-mo-city/
