Death toll rises after tornado hits Texas

tornadoes have devastated parts of Texas, killing at least six people, injuring dozens more and destroying or damaging scores of homes.

The worst-hit area was Granbury, where authorities say a storm tore through two neighbourhoods.

Sheriff Roger Deeds reported several deaths, adding: “Some were found in houses, some were found around houses.”

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He added that the total could climb as crews pick through the rubble of shattered homes.

About 50 people were taken to a local hospital, where 14 were admitted for treatment. Two were transferred to a hospital in Fort Worth, about 35 miles away.

As many as 100 people were injured, said a spokesman for a healthcare firm that sent three ambulances and a medical bus to the town of about 8,000 inhabitants about 65 miles south west of Dallas.

The same storm spawned another tornado that witnesses told the National Weather Service was a mile wide. That twister tore through the south-western quadrant of Cleburne, a city of about 30,000 residents about 25 miles south east of Granbury.

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The outer bands of Cyclone Mahasen struck the southern coast of Bangladesh on Wednesday, lashing remote fishing villages with heavy rain and fierce winds and forcing the evacuation of more than 1m residents. The eye of the storm was expected to reach land later yesterday, but at least 18 deaths related to Mahasen already have been reported in Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka.

The storm was on course for Bangladesh, Burma and north east India, threatening lives in an area with a total population of 8.2 million, according to the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Danger was greatest for tens of thousands of displaced people living in plastic tents and reed huts in refugee camps along Burma’s western coast. Driven from their homes by violence, the Muslim minority refused to evacuate, distrusting officials in a majority-Buddhist country after decades of discrimination.

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