Devastating tornado rips through Nebraska destroying hundreds of homes

A violent tornado has wreaked havoc after it blew through the US state of Nebraska.

It ripped homes to pieces and left 10,000 without power in Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday.

The city with a population of 485,000 was the worst hit in the state, although scores of tornadoes were reported across the midwestern state.

Shocking footage reveals the scale of devastation in parts of the city.

Destruction in Omaha, Nebraska (Picture: Alex Freed/Reuters)

A tornado lands near the U.S. Route 275 by the Platte river near Omaha, Nebraska (Picture: Chris Machian/AP)

Homes were totaled and debris strewn across neighbourhoods, while other houses just yards away survived unscathed.

One of the worst affected areas is Elkhorn in the western part of the city, where hundreds of homes were damaged.

Pat Woods, who lives in Elkhorn, told AP of the terrifying moment he could hear the tornado near his home: ‘We watched it touch down like 200 yards over there and then we took shelter.

‘We could hear it coming through. When we came up our fence was gone and we looked to the northwest and the whole neighborhood’s gone.’

Kim Woods, his wife, said: ‘The whole neighborhood just to the north of us is pretty flattened.’

The violent tornado smashed through Nebraska before moving into Iowa state

Omaha resident Terry Kicking inspects what is left of his home after the tornado (Picture:Nikos Frazier /AP)

Hundreds of homes were badly damaged (Credits: Alex Freed/Reuters)

Emergency crews are searching houses in Omaha for trapped people (Picture: Alex Freed/Reuters)

The Nebraska governor has ordered state resources to help with the emergency response (Picture: Nikos Frazier/AP)

A tornado near Waverley, Nebraska, on Friday (Picture: Chris Machian/AP)

Several people have been injured, while there were no reports of deaths by Friday night, the news agency reports.

Emergency crews searched homes door-to-door in the worst hit areas to help anyone trapped inside, the city’s fire chief Kathy Bossman said.

She said: ‘We’ll be looking throughout properties in debris piles, we’ll be looking in basements, trying to find any victims and make sure everybody is rescued who needs assistance.’

One woman was removed from a damaged home on a stretcher in the city of Blair, local KETV-TV reports.

Children took shelter in schools amid the tornado alert issued just when pupils were due to head home for the weekend.

Three people were injured in Lancaster County, Nebraska, after an industrial building collapsed, AP reports.

The tornado passed directly through the city’s Eppley Airfield airport where planes were grounded and passengers sheltered in storm bunkers.

Live were saved thanks to ‘warnings,’ Omaha police chief Todd Schmaderer said.

Becky Kern, warning coordination meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Omaha office said: ‘It does look like a big outbreak again tomorrow. Maybe slightly farther south.

Meteorologists were working to determine whether it was ‘one long track tornado or was it several tornadoes’ while some of them appeared to ‘violent tornadoes,’ she said.

The local sheriff’s office said a train had tipped over northeast of Lincoln.

It then crossed the Missouri River and smashed into Iowa.

Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen said on X (formerly Twitter) that he ordered state resources to help with emergency response.

He said communities will rally around affected families and businesses, adding that ‘Nebraskans are no strangers to severe weather.’

Unpredictable weather is set to continue over the weekend in tornado-prone states as the Weather Service issued tornado watches in parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

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