Two kitchen chairs are about all that remain from this house in Joplin, Missouri after a tornado swept through the town in May. The house's foundation was bulldozed on Thursday, soon after this image was taken.

It has been a bad year for tornadoes across the US with at least four people killed in central and western Massachusetts on Wednesday as a result of severe storms and twisters. Alabama was hit hard in April and on May 22, a massive tornado killed 134 people in Joplin. It was the deadliest single tornado in the US since 1947.