At least five people were killed in thunderstorms over the weekend, and thousands of homes and businesses in the US Midwest remained without power on Monday, reports said.  

Three people were killed in Michigan last Friday when wind felled trees onto vehicles, a tornado killed a woman in Nebraska and flooding killed a woman in Iowa.

In Michigan, about 105,000 customers still had no power Monday, down from some 510,000 that were blacked out by storms during the weekend.

In Ohio, storms knocked out power to more than 30,000 homes and businesses early Monday, and several schools were closed because of the power outage. In Indiana, over 6,000 had no power.

About 100 to 150 mm of rainfall was recorded in much of southern Wisconsin over the past week, and Detroit Metropolitan Airport got some 70 mm of rainfall, according to the National Weather Service.

Parts of Iowa got as much as 230 mm of rain during the weekend, flooding streets and forcing some resident in Des Moines, the state capital, to leave their homes. Governor Tom Vilsack has asked President George W. Bush to declare 17 counties in the state federal disaster areas, which was hit by 17 tornadoes last Saturday.

In Nebraska, Governor Mike Johanns has declared a state of emergency to make state and potential federal resources available for the southern part of the state, which was struck by more than a dozen tornadoes over the weekend.

(Xinhua News Agency May 25, 2004)