A powerful tornado left a trail of destruction on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas over the weekend, but the early warning of forecasters prevented casualties among residents. Those who did not survive are three students who were killed in an accident while chasing after the storm. Nearly a thousand buildings were damaged when the storm – which according to initial estimates reached a speed of 250 to 300 km / h – raged for about 21 minutes in Sedgwick and Benton counties in southern Kansas on Friday evening. .

The U.S. Forecast Service provided an alert for the approaching storm about eight minutes before the hit and allowed residents to reach the shelter. As a result, no casualties were reported and four people were injured, including one from shrapnel and another during an escape attempt. “I’ve never seen anything like it, the tornado just got bigger and bigger,” one resident described.

But while in October they breathed a sigh of relief after it became clear there were no victims, it turned out that three meteorology students from the University of Oklahoma perished in an accident while chasing the storm. The university said the dead were Nicholas Nair (20), Gwyn Short (19) and Drake Brooks (22).

According to the details provided by the traffic police, the three were driving in the Volkswagen car in which Nair was driving, when the vehicle suddenly stopped functioning due to the wet road conditions and stopped in the middle of the lane. A truck hit the car that was hit hard and firefighters worked for more than five hours until they managed to rescue the three dead.