Rescuers comb through rubble following a tornado strike in Mississippi

Rescuers combed through rubble on Saturday (March 25) after a powerful storm tore across Mississippi overnight, killing at least 25 people there and another in Alabama, leveling dozens of buildings, and spawning at least one devastating tornado. Video taken in Rolling Fork, a town of 1,700 in western Mississippi that was hit hardest, showed homes reduced to rubble, tree trunks snapped like twigs, and cars tossed aside. The tornado stayed on the ground for about an hour and cut a path of destruction some 170 miles (274 km) long, according to preliminary information, said Nicholas Price, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, Mississippi. On Saturday afternoon, Mississippi’s emergency management agency said that the death toll had risen to 25, with dozens more injured. The agency said four people who had been reported missing earlier have been located. At least 12 deaths occurred in Rolling Fork, its mayor, Eldridge Walker, told CNN earlier in the day.