Probe into collapse of Amazon warehouse
US regulators have opened an investigation into the collapse of an Amazon warehouse in Illinois after it was struck by a tornado on Friday, leaving six people dead and another in hospital.
Occupational Health and Safety Administration inspectors, who have been at the site in Edwardsville since Saturday, will look into whether workplace safety rules were followed and will have six months to complete the investigation, said spokesperson Scott Allen.
Amazon said workers at the warehouse had little time to prepare when the National Weather Service declared a tornado warning on Friday night.
The tornado arrived soon after, collapsing both sides of the warehouse and caving in its roof.
“There was a tremendous effort that happened that night to keep everybody safe,” said John Felton, Amazon’s senior vice president of global delivery services.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said the warehouse received tornado warnings between 8.06pm and 8.16pm on Friday, and site leaders directed workers to immediately take shelter. At 8.27pm, the tornado struck the building.
Mr Felton said most of the 46 people in the warehouse known as a “delivery station” headed to a shelter on the north side, which ended up “nearly undamaged,” and a smaller group to the harder-hit south end.
The investigation in Illinois came as workers, volunteers and members of the National Guard were spreading across tornadodamaged areas of Kentucky to assist with recovery tasks ranging from replacing thousands of damaged utility poles to delivering bottles of drinking water.
The tornado outbreak on Friday that killed at least 88 people in five states - 74 of them in Kentucky - cut a path of damage from Arkansas to Illinois.
Five twisters hit Kentucky in all, including one with a path of about 200 miles, authorities said.