- Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said "more than 80 Kentuckians" are dead after tornadoes struck.
- Over 100 people were trapped in a candle factory that collapsed on Friday, and at least 40 have been rescued.
- Gov. Beshear said it will be a "miracle" if more people are pulled from the rubble at the factory.
As the death toll climbs in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore across the Mid-South late Friday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said it will be a "miracle" if more people are rescued from a collapsed factory.
A tornado caused the roof of the Mayfield Consumer Products factory to cave in, resulting in mass casualties among the approximately 110 employees that were working in the candle factory, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on CNN on Sunday morning.
"It will be a miracle if we pull anybody else out of that," Beshear said told CNN's Jake Tapper. "It's now 15 feet deep of steel and cars on top of where the roof was."
In a harrowing video posted on Facebook, one Mayfield employee documented her experience of being trapped behind a wall along with several colleagues after the roof collapsed. Another employee, Kyanna Parsons-Perez who had been working when the roof collapsed, told Insider's Joshua Zitser she was trapped under "at least 5-feet" of debris and in "so much pain."
The collapse resulted in "mass casualties," Beshear said on Saturday. On Sunday, the governor said the factory had a plan to keep workers safe amid Friday's storm but doubted it would have been sufficient.
"My understanding is that they did have a plan inside the facility that we believe most of the workers got to what is supposed to be the safest place in the facility, but when you see the damage that this storm did, not just there but across the area, I'm not sure there was a plan that would have worked," Beshear said.
"About 40 of them have been rescued, and I'm not sure that we're going to see another rescue. I pray for it. It would be an incredibly welcome miracle, but I think it's been since 3:30 yesterday morning that we found a live person," Beshear added.
Beshear said the death toll for the state has reached 80 people, and it will surpass 100.
"This is the deadliest tornado event we have ever had. I think it's going to be the longest and deadliest tornado event in US history," Beshears said. "I've got towns that are gone."
While rescue efforts are ongoing, weather conditions in Kentucky have reached freezing temperatures.
"It's going to take us time," Beshear said. "You think you'd go door to door to check on people and see if they're okay. There are no doors. The question is, is somebody in the rubble of thousands upon thousands of structures."
Friday's tornadoes also hit Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois.