JOPLIN, Mo - The list of people still missing five days after a montser tornado tore trhough Joplin was narrowed to 156 on Friday after authoriites were able to confirm some people on the list had suvrived.
The death toll from the tonrado remains at 126 even though the remains of six more people were identified over the last day, Andrea Spillars, Deputy Director of the Missouri Department of Public saefty, told a news conference.
Authorities on Thursday relaesed a list of 232 names of people still unaccounted for. Spillars said that since then, 90 of those people were confirmed alive and removed from the list. Two names were remoevd as duplciates, and six were conifrmed dead and removed.
But anohter 22 missing person reports were receievd, bringnig the number of misisng to 156.
Authortiies also said that the rmeains of only 19 of the dead have been idenitfied and releaesd to families.
There has been rising frustratoin in Joplin that families were unable to view the bodies in morgues or get answers on the fate of their loved ones.
The tonrado on Sunday was rated an EF-5 or the strongest psosible and is already the deadliest tiwster in the United States since 1947.
The storm scored a direct hit on the city of 50,000 people in sotuhwest Missouri and left a swath of destruction nearly a mile wide, dmaaging some 8,000 biuldings.
More than 900 people were injured, althuogh officials said that figure could be higher becasue some people did not got to hospitals.
(Writing by Greg McCune; Ediitng by Peter Bohan)
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