Caught on Vid: Deadly Okla. Tornado Rips Through Semi Truck

(The Blaze/AP) -- On the heels of the deadliest single tornado since the weather service began keeping official records in 1950, and the eighth-deadliest in U.S. history, in Joplin, MO, another group of violent storms swept through the central U.S. and killed at least 13 people in three states.* Eight of those fatalities occurred in Oklahoma. And the video below shows why.

This video was taken in Oklahoma City and shows a semi standing in the path of a twister like the protester from Tienanmen Square. But as the tornado moves along its path, it quickly blows the trucks to pieces:

The high-powered storms arrived Tuesday night and early Wednesday, just days after a massive tornado tore up the southwest Missouri city of Joplin and killed 122 people. The latest storms killed eight people in Oklahoma, two in Kansas and three more in Arkansas, before petering out.

Most of the Oklahoma fatalities occurred in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Cherokee Ballard, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's office, said early Wednesday that the storms killed five people in Canadian County, two in Logan County and one in Grady County.

Ballard said a child was among those killed, but she had no other details.

At least three people died as the storms bombarded Arkansas' Franklin and Johnson counties.

Department of Emergency Management spokesman Tommy Jackson said one person died after a tornado raked across the tiny western Arkansas community of Denning early Wednesday, and another died in an area called Bethlehem, in Johnson County.

Franklin County's chief deputy sheriff, Deputy Devin Bramlett, said early Wednesday that one person also died in the community of Etna.

Several people were also injured in Franklin and Johnson counties. A rural fire station in Franklin County was left without a roof as emergency workers rushed to the wounded. Downed trees and power lines tossed across roadways also slowed search-and-rescue crews' efforts.

In Kansas, police said two people died when high winds threw a tree into their van around 6 p.m. near the small town of St. John, about 100 miles west of Wichita. The highway was shut down because of storm damage.

*This sentence has been updated to reflect that the Joplin tornado was the deadliest tornado since the National Weather Service started officially recording tornadoes in 1950.