Race to find survivors as US tornadoes kill at least 94

US emergency workers on Sunday desperately searched for survivors of ferocious late-season tornadoes that killed at least 94 across several states and left towns in ruins, including in the debris of a Kentucky candle factory, a symbol of the widespread devastation.

But the state's governor Andy Beshear warned that the search in that facility in Mayfield -- a town almost completely wiped out by the twisters -- may be in vain, admitting "another rescue" may not happen there.

President Joe Biden has called the wave of tornadoes "one of the largest" storm outbreaks in American history, adding, "We still don't know how many lives are lost and the full extent of the damage."

He sent the heads of the Homeland Security Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to Kentucky to assess the situation, and promised the full gamut of federal aid.

With the death toll all but certain to rise, scores of search and rescue officers were helping stunned citizens across the US heartland sift through the rubble of their homes and businesses. 

More than 80 people are dead in Kentucky alone, many of them workers at the Mayfield factory, Beshear said Sunday as he raised the confirmed toll by 10 fatalities.

"That number is going to exceed more than 100," Beshear told CNN.

Of the 110 employees working Friday night in the candle factory, "about 40 of them have been rescued and I'm not sure we're going to see another rescue," Beshear said. 

"I pray for it. It would be an incredible miracle." 

Meanwhile, at least six people died in an Amazon warehouse in the southern Illinois city of Edwardsville, where they were on the night shift processing orders ahead of Christmas.