Missouri town says 233 missing after tornado

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JOPLIN: Officials Thursday said 232 people were still missing four days after a tornado tore through a Missouri town, and had only managed to identify one of the 125 bodies found in the storm's wake.

Some of the missing from Sunday's disaster in Joplin may be among the unidentified remains being stored in a hastily constructed mass morgue.

But officials pleaded with anxious family members for patience while they undertake a lengthy identification process involving DNA testing and fingerprinting.

Some may simply have failed to contact anxious friends and family. There may also still be people trapped in the rubble who have not been officially reported missing, Spiller cautioned.

Asked why families were not being allowed into the morgue to visually identify their loved ones, she replied: "It is not 100 percent accurate, and 100 percent accurate is our goal."

In what is one of the worst tornado seasons on record after a series of twisters killed hundreds in southern US states last month, Sunday's was the deadliest single tornado to strike America in six decades.

Crews continue to search through the tangled piles of debris in hope of finding survivors, but hopes were fading after rescuers found no one in the rubble Wednesday -- dead or alive.

Anguished families have kept up a desperate hunt for their missing loved ones. But poor and patchy communications plus the complete devastation of some areas have hampered the search.

Officials said they hoped that by publishing the list of 232 names they could locate the missing and ease the frayed nerves of their families. (AFP)