America's deadliest tornado for 64 years

Rescue teams searched piles of crushed cars and broken homes today in a desperate search for victims of a tornado a half-mile wide, which killed at least 116 people when he blew much of this Missouri City Map and slammed directly into his hospital.

The tornado was the deadliest single twister in the United States in nearly 60 years and the second major natural disaster in less than a month.

Authorities feared the toll could rise as the full extent of the destruction in sight.

Thousands of homes were reduced to slabs, cars crushed like soda cans and shaken residents were roaming streets in search of missing relatives.

Yet despite the power of the tornado, the danger was far from over. Fires burned gas leaks throughout the city, and more violent weather arises today, including the threat of hail, high winds and even tornadoes. At daybreak, south side of the city has emerged from obscurity as barren desert of smoke.

"I've never seen such devastation - just hang by a single block of houses just disappeared," said former state legislator Gary Burton who came to help a volunteer center at Missouri Southern State University .

Unlike many storms that killed over 300 people last month in the South, Joplin was broken by a single unusually powerful tornado.

Thousands of people were left homeless go there tonight after the deadliest single tornado to strike the U.S. in 60 years landed on the Missouri, the reduction of the ruined city of Joplin, ripping apart buildings and killing at least 116 people in a 6 - mile path of destruction.

Authorities said they had rescued seven people alive on Monday, but warned that emergency the death toll could climb higher than the high winds, heavy rain and hail hail quarter business hampered the effort research.