Fifty people have been “likely” killed in tornadoes, the Kentucky governor told Reuters

(Reuters) – “50 people are likely to be killed” in Kentucky and several other US states at dusk and early Saturday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.

WLKY has told local television that the death toll could be “significantly north of it”, the Washington Post reported.

“The reports are really painful,” he said in the Post. In addition, a spokesman for the state’s emergency management service said rescue officials had not confirmed any death or injury figures by Saturday morning.

Some of the worst destruction was in Mayfield, western Kentucky, the New York Times reported. About 110 people were killed when a tornado broke inside a candle factory, he added.

“We believe we will lose at least dozens of people,” the Beshear Times told the Times.

In Tennessee, severe weather killed at least three people, State Emergency Management Agency spokesman Dean Flener said in comments to the mail.

At least one person was killed and five were injured when a tornado shook the roof of a Monette nursing home in northern Arkansas, local Post Office officials said.

In Illinois, authorities said many people were trapped Friday night after a roof partially collapsed in a warehouse near Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ 🙂 near St. Louis, due to tornadoes and severe storms across the area.

Beshear, who imposed a state of emergency in his state, said the damage would be “one of the worst we’ve seen in a long time.”

The storm caused a CSX (NASDAQ 🙂 freight train to pull out of western Kentucky, though no one was injured, the Times said.

Bill Bunting, head of operations at the Storm Forecast Center, part of the National Weather Service, said the tornadoes hit at least five states, naming them Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, the Times reported.