Posted: May 22, 2011 7:34 PM CDT Updated: May 22, 2011 7:46 PM CDT
Updated 7:45 PM CST: Joplin High School has been severely damaged. The graduation was today, but was held at Missouri Southern.
Posted 7:40 PM CST: Tornadoes touch down in Joplin leaving a path of destruction throughout the city.
Power lines and phone lines are down. Communications are difficult.
Starting at 20th and Rangeline a tornado destroyed countless buildings throughout the area.
At the 15th and Rangeline Walmart ambulances lined the street as emergency rescue officials across the Four-States have responded to rescue hundreds of residents trapped inside the building.
St. John's hospital was also hit hard by the tornado. One resident living nearly 45-miles away from the hospital says his yard is now full of debris from the hospital-- medical supplies and x-rays.
Officials say the hospital is severely damaged. Chunks of the building were taken out and windows were blown out.
Eastbound and westbound I-44 is closed at mile marker 18 near Joplin due to overturned tractor trailers during severe weather.
More updates will be posted as we confirm information.
A tornado has killed 24 people in the small US town of Joplin in Missouri, according to local media reports, less than a month after tornadoes carved a swathe of destruction through the country's south-east.
The Springfield News-Leader newspaper reported that Ryan Nicholls, spokesman for the Springfield-Greene County office of emergency management, confirmed 24 people were killed on Sunday (local time).
The newspaper reports Joplin, located just miles from the borders of Kansas and Oklahoma, took a "direct hit" from a tornado.
According to police and local television footage, the tornado tore through neighbourhoods as well as a hospital in the town.
"It's done quite a bit of damage," a police officer in Joplin said.
"It hit quite a few parts of town."
On Sunday, video footage on the Weather Channel showed extensive areas where whole neighbourhoods had been levelled.
Missouri state highway patrol dispatcher Charles Bradley says the extent of the damage is still unknown as a variety of state and local agencies have sent help to the area.
He says the devastation could rival that seen in Tuscaloosa in Alabama last month, where more than 30 people died when tornadoes struck on April 27.
Across Alabama, more than 230 people died in the tornadoes that swept the state that night.
"There is a hospital that was majorly damaged," Mr Bradley said of Joplin's damage.
"It's kind of like Tuscaloosa again."
Danny Gordon, an emergency services dispatcher in the area, says damage seems to be heaviest on the south end of Joplin and a triage centre has been set up on the scene.
"We have asked all available law enforcement from adjoining counties for assistance," he said.
Another tornado ripped through the north end of Minneapolis and some suburbs at the weekend, tearing roofs off dozens of homes and garages, killing one person and injuring at least 18 others, authorities said.
They were still assessing the damage caused by the tornado, which struck on Sunday afternoon.
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