US tornado death toll rises to 132

The death toll from one of the worst tornadoes to hit the United States rose to 132 on Friday as crews continued to search the rubble for survivors and victims. Officials said many of the missing were likely to be among the dead, but a full accounting is impossible until next of kin are notified.

Five days after the massive tornado cut a kilometres-long path of destruction through this town of 50,000, officials have managed to pare down the list of the missing to 156 from 232. But for those families who are still waiting for news, the wait has proved agonising and many have mounted their own searches.

Dozens of people have been helping families search the miles-long debris field _ even heading out in small planes to scan areas farther afield _ but they have had no luck.

Friday's steep decline in the number of missing persons came after the Missouri Department of Public Safety published a list of 232 persons unaccounted for, and discovered that 90 people on the list were in fact alive, said spokesman Seth Bundy.

The twister, a massive kilometre-wide funnel cloud, ranks as the single deadliest tornado to hit the United States since modern record keeping began in 1950. It tore apart everything it touched along a path six kilometres long.

More than 8,000 structures in the Midwestern town were damaged or destroyed when the twister, packing winds over 320 kilometres an hour, came roaring through with just a 24-minute warning.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has ordered the state's national guard to remove the wasteland of debris left by the tornado, a mission he described as an "enormous task", but crucial for the city's recovery.