La Plata, in Charles County, was one of several towns across the Eastern and Midwestern United States that were hit by a string of weekend tornadoes and thunderstorms that caused a total of 10 deaths and more than 100 injuries.

Some 30 tornadoes were spawned on Sunday by a series of strong spring thunderstorms that drenched states from Kentucky in the South to New York in the North, and from Missouri in the West to Maryland in the East.

Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening declared a state of emergency for Charles and Calvert counties, where the most powerful tornado left a 12-mile (19 km) path of destruction.

The National Weather Service said damage assessment teams had determined that an "F5" tornado on the Fujita Tornado Damage Scale, the most destructive of five categories of tornado capable of blowing strong wood frame homes off their foundations, had touched down in Charles County.

Nina Voehl, public information officer for Charles County government, identified one of the dead as William Erickson, 51, whose home collapsed on him as the twister cut through about 7 p.m. (2300 GMT).

A second Charles County man died of a stroke in his car as the storm hit, while an elderly woman was killed when her home collapsed in neighboring Calvert County.

"We're winding up the search-and-rescue effort. No one is missing," Voehl said earlier yesterday. "We still don't have figures on what the extent of the damage is, but there are engineers out there now doing assessments."

HUNDREDS HOMELESS

Thousands were still without power and hundreds were homeless following the tornado, which flattened much of the central business district of La Plata. It was the first major tornado to strike the area since the early 1930s.

Storms struck western Kentucky before dawn on Sunday, killing one man, injuring at least 30 people and damaging or destroying 146 homes, state emergency officials said.

In southeast Missouri a 12-year-old boy was killed by a twister as a severe thunderstorm rolled through rural Bollinger County.

One woman was killed in a tornado that touched down in Dongola, Illinois, after a series of severe storms moved through the southern tip of Illinois. Homes were damaged, trees uprooted and power lines downed in the rural communities of Glatia and Cypress, also in southern Illinois.

In the upper Midwest, the weekend storms turned spring back into winter. Four people were killed in Minnesota in accidents on snow-slicked roads on Saturday and some residents of northern Wisconsin, where as much as 20 inches (50.8 cm) of snow fell, were still without power yesterday.