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A tornado struck Ciudad Acuna in northern Mexico, near the Texas border, killing at least 13 people.

Cidad Acuna is just two miles from Texas’ Laughlin Air Force base, the largest pilot training base in the US.

About 300 homes have been damaged or destroyed in Ciudad Acuna, in Coahuila state, according to a press statement from the Coahuila Government.

Images from the scene showed cars upended and leaning against buildings.

Dozens of people have been injured and officials warned that the death toll could rise.

Coahuila Governor Ruben Moreira, on a visit to the stricken area, said 10 adults and three children had died and a baby was missing. Another 150 people had been taken to hospital, he said.

Photo Twitter

Photo Twitter

“Most of the dead are people who were outside, not people who were inside their homes,” said Ciudad Acuna Mayor Evaristo Lenin Perez.

Rescuers were searching the 750 damaged properties for more casualties.

Witnesses said a bus had been flipped over by the tornado.

“There are cars on top of houses, there are dead people lying in the street, it is total chaos,” said local resident Maria del Rosario Ramirez, quoted by Mexican newspaper La Jornada.

Victor Zamora, Coahuila’s interior secretary, said an area of about seven blocks had been “devastated” by the tornado, which struck at about 06:10.

The interior department said state officials were coordinating a response.

Severe weather is also affecting southern US states including Texas.

A dozen people are missing after flash floods struck the Blanco River in central Texas on May 24. The floods also damaged hundreds of homes, some of them swept off their foundations.

A tornado damaged a block of flats in Houston over the weekend.

More than 130 prisoners are on the run in Mexico after a mass breakout from Coahuila jail close to the US border.

The inmates escaped through a tunnel dug out from the prison’s carpentry workshop to a perimeter fence.

The prison director and two other employees are being held over the incident at the facility in Coahuila, the state’s attorney general said.

A massive manhunt is under way, and the US authorities are on alert in case any escapees attempt to cross the border.

Some 132 men managed to escape from the prison in the city of Piedras Negras, which borders Eagle Pass in Texas to the north.

More than 130 prisoners are on the run in Mexico after a mass breakout from Coahuila jail close to the US border

More than 130 prisoners are on the run in Mexico after a mass breakout from Coahuila jail close to the US border

One by one, the inmates fled through a tunnel measuring 2.9 m (9.5 ft) deep and 7 m long, attorney general Homero Ramos said in a statement broadcast on local TV.

The state government has offered rewards of 200,000 pesos ($15,600) for information leading to the arrest of each prisoner.

This is not the first time such a mass breakout has taken place in Coahuila, but it is by far one of the biggest in recent years.

Such events only go to underline further to the incoming government of President Enrique Pena Nieto the dire state of the prison system in Mexico.

Enrique Pena Nieto is to take office on 1 December. However, prison reform is not expected to be one of the main priorities of his government.