Tornadoes' death toll mounts; rescue efforts underway

Jessie Halladay and Doyle Rice in USA Today: A series of tornadoes that cut a swath of death and destruction across at least 10 states left stunned residents digging through rubble Saturday, looking for survivors and bodies.

The death toll stood at 31 early Saturday, including 14 Indiana, 13 in Kentucky, three in Ohio and one in Alabama. Tornadoes also were reported in Mississippi, Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Massive thunderstorms threw off scores of tornadoes, crushing entire blocks of homes, ripping down power lines and tossing cars, buses and trucks on roadways made impassable by debris. The scale of the devastation and the breadth of the storms made it impossible to immediately assess the storm system's damage.

At least four people were killed in and around the town of Chelsea in Jefferson County, Ind. First responders found a 4-year-old boy and his great-grandparents lying on the ground 50 feet from where the elderly couple's home was blown off its foundation and thrown more than 100 feet. "All of this happened in less than 30 seconds," said volunteer firefigthter Cory Thomas.

In Marysville, Ind., most of the several dozen homes that make up the town were destroyed. "Marysville is completely gone," Clark County Sheriff's Maj. Chuck Adams said.

Kentucky declared a state of emergency, and Indiana officials said they were discussing that. Authorities in Ohio planned to survey areas Saturday to determine the extent of the damage there....

February 29, 2012. a view of where a church used to stand in Harrisburg, Illinois, on U.S. Route 45 at south corner with Illinois Route 34 and Illinois Route 145, adjacent to the United States Forest Service office. Shot by Pat York, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license