5 dead as tornadoes hit US

At least five people, including two children, died as more than 100 tornadoes raked across the central United States leaving destruction in their wake.

Storm chaser photographer Brad Mack shoots a tornado as it makes its way over the 135 freeway near Moundridge, Kansas

The twisters ripped through homes, a hospital, and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people.

The deaths were caused by a tornado that touched down just after midnight in the town of Woodward, Oklahoma, which is home to 12,000 people. Two children died at a mobile home park there.

Mayor Roscoe Hill said lightning had apparently disabled the town's storm warning system. He said: "This thing took us by surprise. It's kind of overwhelming."

The Woodward Regional Hospital said 29 people, five of them in critical condition, were brought there with injuries including fractures.

Dozens of other tornadoes hit Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska where hail the size of baseballs was reported.

A hospital in Creston, Iowa, had its windows blown out but patients were unharmed. The entire population of 300 in the town of Thurman, Iowa were evacuated. Three out of four homes there were damaged or destroyed.

The storms were part of an exceptionally strong weather system that the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma had warned about for days.

More extensive casualties were largely avoided due to early warnings, and because many of the tornadoes hit rural areas.

The American Red Cross summoned volunteers to drive relief trucks from Oklahoma City to aid rescue crews in and around Woodward. Regional spokesman Rusty Surette said: "They're in chaos mode."

He said trucks with cots, food, water and medical supplies would head to the area where a shelter was established in a church.

Tornadoes have already caused 62 deaths in 2012 in the US Midwest and South.

Last year was the deadliest for tornadoes in the United States for nearly 100 years. Around 550 people died in tornadoes in 2011, including 316 killed in an outbreak across five Southern states in April, and 161 people in Joplin, Missouri the following month.