Tornadoes Touch Down in Midwest, Five Dead

A severe, fast-moving storm system swept the U.S. Midwest Sunday, killing at least five people in Illinois and leaving several others injured.

Officials had warned of a severe storm setting off tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. By the time the storm activity passed the Midwest, authorities had received reports of over 70 tornadoes, most of them from Illinois. However, officials say the numbers are still unconfirmed as there might be multiple reports of the same storm, The New York Times reported.

According to Reuters, a National Weather Service team confirmed a tornado hitting the Washington County in southern Illinois with wind speeds of 166 to 200 miles per hour.

The town of Washington was the hardest-hit.                                              

"I stepped outside and I heard it coming. My daughter was already in the basement, so I ran downstairs and grabbed her, crouched in the laundry room and all of a sudden I could see daylight up the stairway and my house was gone," Michael Perdun said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Rich Thompson, a lead forecaster with the weather service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, told Reuters that the tornado was fast and most of the damage occurred in just about five hours. The storm affected thousands of people. Some 140,000 in Illinois, 100,000 in Michigan along with 50,000 in Indiana and 3,000 in Kentucky were affected by power outages Sunday due to the storm.

Five People Dead

Among the dead were an 80-year-old man and his 78-year-old sister who were killed after a tornado hit their farm outside New Minden, Ill. Two other people died  in Massac County in Southern Illinois and another in Washington, Ill., according to The New York Times.

The toll is expected to rise as many people are still buried under piles of rubble. At least 37 people have been admitted in a hospital in Peoria for severe injuries.

Storm Delays a National Football League game

Thunderstorms and winds delayed an NFL game in Chicago, according to several news reports. People attending the afternoon football game at Soldier Field had to take shelter as the game between Chicago Bears and Baltimore Ravens was suspended for about two hours. The Bears won the game.

"The rain started coming, the skies got black, the wind was insane, and they evacuated us to underneath the concrete concourse," Jim Arnold, who was at the game with his 11-year-old daughter, told CNN."We've been through 15-degree-below weather and winds, but never anything like this. The winds gusted at 70 mph, and the winds and the rain were horizontal and everybody was running. It was just crazy."