Kyle and Alicia Gordon lost their home in Sunday's tornado in Joplin, Mo. Hundreds of people are still missing. More Photos »
JOPLIN, Mo. — The sun shone for the first time in days on this devastated city on Tuesday, illuminating the full extent of the damage as rescue workers performed the grim task of searching for survivors and victims in buildings leveled by the United States’ deadliest tornado since modern record-keeping began.
Volunteers look for victims of a devastating tornado in Joplin, Mo., on Tuesday. More Photos » At least 122 people died, a number that seems likely to rise. An additional 1,500 people remained on the official list of those who remained unaccounted for, which ballooned in a flood of worried phone calls but is gradually shrinking as the names of the living and the dead are scratched off.
The police said two people were found alive Tuesday, in addition to seven found on Monday.
Because cellphone service was knocked out by the storm on Sunday and remained spotty two days later, many residents were unable to contact friends and relatives who may still be alive. Residents’ frustration and fears grew as officials declined to share the names of the dead and the missing, and they have turned to local radio and Facebook.
Meanwhile, bands of workers and volunteers — armed with crowbars, sledgehammers and chainsaws — continued to dig through the debris of wood, metal and plastic that blanketed the city. Their mission was still officially one of rescue, but those doing the digging worked urgently, with the knowledge that their task could soon turn to just recovery.
While much of Tuesday provided a respite from the nearly unrelenting rain and wind that had hampered rescue efforts, more challenging weather was in the forecast.
The Sunday tornado — whose classification was upgraded by the National Weather Service on Tuesday to the most severe level, with winds exceeding 200 miles per hour — was the deadliest in a season in which twisters have killed more than 480 people.
The Joplin tornado damaged nearly a third of the city. But workers were particularly concerned about a busy strip of big-box stores and densely populated apartment complexes that included Hampshire Terrace, where Becky Carithers returned Tuesday morning to the wreckage of her apartment. The site was now a bare slab of concrete and wood, and she found that the winds had stripped her of nearly all her possessions.
Ms. Carithers screamed in astonishment and joy when a man emerged from a car down the street. Her neighbor was alive. She cried aloud to him — “You lived!” — then repeated it more softly to her companion. Then she wept.
“I’m so glad he’s O.K.,” she said. She fell into her companion’s arms, her chest heaving against him.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
The sobs deepened and continued for a long time before she spoke again, her voice heavy with revelation: “We lived. We lived.”
Most of the Hampshire Terrace buildings had already been searched once and marked by a spray-painted “X.” But they were now being searched more thoroughly. A crew of 50 firefighters from St. Louis planned to spend the day sifting through the wreckage in the rubble of the two-story buildings in the horseshoe-shaped complex.
The cadaver-sniffing dogs they requested had not arrived, and high-tech cameras and listening devices could do only so much, so the work was slow and back-breaking as they moved boards and bricks one at a time.
“This is one of the last areas where they don’t have a firm, clear picture of what happened,” said Ed Beirne, an assistant fire chief in charge of the group.
He took pains to manage expectations. “We’re always hopeful, but we briefed the guys to plan for the worst,” he said. “Anyone who was injured in here is probably expired by now.”
The residents of the 100-unit complex used the break in the weather after days of continued rain, hail, lightning and tornado warnings to search for salvageable possessions — a child’s favorite toy, a lost wedding ring, the flag that had been draped over a father’s coffin. Some wondered where they would put these waterlogged keepsakes, pointing out that they needed to find a place to live.
The biggest discoveries were of each other. Neighbors shared tearful embraces and recounted harrowing episodes of riding out the storm.
Jennifer Preston, Sarah Wheaton and Timothy Williams contributed reporting from New York.