CNN Center damaged by 130mph tornado

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CNN is broadcasting a single news service around the world due to severe tornado damage at its global headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

America's National Weather Service has confirmed that at around 9:40pm Eastern Time yesterday, an EF-2 tornado packing top winds of 130mph ripped through a 6-mile swathe of downtown Atlanta including CNN Center, the Georgia Dome and Centennial Olympic Park.

CNN's domestic news channel covered the storm live, showing pictures and video of the debris outside its headquarters, and remained with rolling coverage until switching to tape at 1am as the scale of damage to the building became evident. Windows facing the Olympic Park were blown out and portions of the roof collapsed. Newsgathering and production teams were relocated overnight and live broadcasts from the damaged domestic news facility resumed at 6am Eastern today; however, half an hour later, another round of severe storms caused water to pour into the facility. Despite attempts to cover workstations with blue tarpaulin and continue a normal service, the decision was taken to suspend the separate broadcasts of CNN US and CNN International and operate a single news service from the facilities of CNN International.

It is understood that no CNN staff were injured in the storm. A CNN spokesperson added that cleanup and repair operations were "ongoing".

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ustv/a91669/cn...ph-tornado.html