Child killed and mother critically injured in Michigan when twister uprooted a tree and sent it crashing into their home
A two-year-old boy was killed and his mother critically injured after a fast-developing tornado struck and caused a tree to fall on their home in the suburban Detroit city of Livonia on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, tornadoes also struck in Maryland on the east coast and a brutal heatwave affected the south-west and California as extreme weather continued to mark the start of summer in the US.
The Livonia fire chief, Robert Jennison, said the tree, described as “massive”, landed on a bed where the child and his mother were sleeping. The mother is in critical condition in hospital; a two-month-old who was also in the home is expected to be OK.
“I’ve been here 35 years. I’ve never seen a storm come through like this. It’s devastating, it’s horrible to see,” Livonia resident Melanie Ricketts told CBS News Detroit.
The storm that produced the tornado came without “advance warning” from the National Weather Service, the city said in a statement.
