The tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri on Sunday left 125 people dead and, currently 232 missing and unaccounted for. The city, which has a population of 50,000, has been reduced to rubble, and one local resident tells the Times, "What else can you do but bulldoze it?. They ought to draw a perimeter around all of it and take it all. What else can you do?" Here's first-hand video recorded as the tornado moved in:
The New Yorker has a collection of videos from before and after the tornado; in one a reporter for the Weather Channel breaks down while doing a report from the rubble. A maintenance man at a local hospital has written a first-hand account of his experience during the tornado, which hit the hospital directly. Soon after it passed, he writes, "People were lined up for 10 blocks or more just to get to our driveways. We had just gone through an earthquake drill last week, so everyone knew where their supplies were. It was calm chaos. Hundreds of wounded, covered in blankets, sitting in chairs, lying on the floor in rows. Blood everywhere."
CBS News reports that the Red Cross, The Salvation Army and World Vision are taking donations to help tornado victims rebuild, and you can also donate a cell phone for victims whose mobile devices were destroyed or lost. Here's video of the aftermath, seen from above:
