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Fatal Storms Pummel Iowa, Reducing Parts of One Town to Rubble 

A firefighter walks among tornado-damaged homes, Tuesday, May 21, 2024, in Greenfield, Iowa. (AP)
A firefighter walks among tornado-damaged homes, Tuesday, May 21, 2024, in Greenfield, Iowa. (AP)
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Fatal Storms Pummel Iowa, Reducing Parts of One Town to Rubble 

A firefighter walks among tornado-damaged homes, Tuesday, May 21, 2024, in Greenfield, Iowa. (AP)
A firefighter walks among tornado-damaged homes, Tuesday, May 21, 2024, in Greenfield, Iowa. (AP)

Severe thunderstorms, apparently spawning tornadoes, raked Iowa on Tuesday afternoon, leaving parts of one town in shambles, toppling several wind turbines and killing at least one person, according to authorities and local media.

Video of the storm's aftermath aired by television station KCCI, a CBS affiliate in the state capital of Des Moines, showed several homes reduced to piles of rubble in Greenfield, Iowa, a town of about 2,000 roughly 60 miles (97 km) to the southwest.

"I've lived here all my life. I'm just praying that everyone was safe, that everybody's safe, and nobody got hurt," Valerie Warrior, a Greenfield resident, said in a KCCI interview, standing near some of the demolished dwellings. "It was scary, very scary."

KCCI reported the damage to Greenfield was apparently caused by a tornado.

Other video showed smashed vehicles and heavy damage to a gasoline station in Greenfield, the county seat of Adair County, which along with adjacent Adams County appeared to have borne the brunt of the Iowa storms in the southwestern corner of the state.

KCCI reported that Adair County Hospital in Greenfield was damaged and was evacuated, citing a hospital spokesperson.

At least one person, a woman in Adams County, was listed as a storm-related fatality, the county's medical examiner Lisa Brown said. She spoke to Reuters by phone but said she could not yet provide more details.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds declared a "disaster emergency" for 15 counties, including Adair and Adams, allowing state resources to be readily utilized in responding to the storm.

Also in Adams County, at least three wind turbines standing about 25 stories high were nearly snapped in half, with one catching fire, KCCI reported. It said several other wind turbines were damaged in Adair County.

The National Weather Service had issued tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm advisories for much of Iowa and several other Midwestern states on Tuesday, including parts of Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Earlier in the day, the weather service confirmed at least one tornado over Rollingstone, Minnesota.

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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV

Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional Gov. Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.” A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her wounds while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-story apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval. “I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s decision to dismiss the commander of the country’s air force Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Zelenskyy stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers.”
“This is two separate issues,” said Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said Sunday that 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.