Aerial photos of the Missouri city of Joplin taken on Tuesday showed the widespread devastation wrought by the record-breaking tornado that struck over the weekend, with entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble and massive buildings levelled. The National Weather Service said Sunday's twister was an EF-5, the strongest rating assigned to tornadoes, with winds of more than 200 miles per hour. With 122 people confirmed dead so far, it was the deadliest single twister since the National Weather Service began keeping official records in 1950 and the eighth-deadliest in US history.