3 killed, dozens injured in Minn. tornadoes

ALBERT LEA, Minn. (AP) — An emergency official says a third death has been confirmed in a series of tornadoes that tore through Minnesota.

Freeborn County's Emergency Management Director Mark Roche says one person was killed at a farm west of Albert Lea city in southern Minnesota when the tornadoes struck Thursday night.

Roche estimates that up to nine tornadoes churned along an 18- to 20-mile path in rural parts of the county. He says the tornadoes damaged 40 to 60 farms, but spared communities.

An elderly woman was killed when a twister wiped out her home near Almora in Otter Tail County, in northwestern Minnesota. Farther north, in Polk County, officials say a man was killed when a tornado destroyed a Cenex gas station in Mentor.

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