Friends and family paid tribute to victims of the Joplin tornado on Friday, beginning the grim task of burying the dead as officials said the savage storm's death toll had risen to 132 people.

As the first funeral began just over the Kansas border, city officials said the body count had gone up by six from the previous day. The state meanwhile worked to pare down the list of people missing and unaccounted for since the deadliest single U.S. twister in more than six decades.

The original list of 232 missing or unaccounted for residents had dropped to 156 by Friday, Missouri Department of Public Safety deputy director Andrea Spillars said, adding that at least 90 people on the initial list had been located alive.

But at least six others were identified as among the dead, and some new names had been added to the scroll of the missing. Authorities had cautioned for days that while they believed many on the list were alive and safe, others likely had been killed.

More than 230 people remain unaccounted for four days after the deadliest single tornado in more than six decades tore through the middle of Joplin, Missouri officials said Thursday.

Officials released a list of names, and Andrea Spillars, deputy director and general counsel for the Missouri Department of Public Safety, urged any survivors on the list to check in.

Officials said previously they believe people who are unaccounted for aren't necessarily dead or trapped in debris. They say many are probably safe and but failed to tell friends and family where they are. Cell phone service in Joplin remains spotty.

"Our goal is to get that number to zero," Spillars said of the missing. "We will dedicate as much state resources as needed around the clock to ensure those families who have loved ones that they cannot find are connected."

But Spillars also said officials know some of the people on the missing list are dead. She wouldn't say

Following the devastating tornado which ripped though Joplin at the weekend, these satellite images show the extent of the damage.

After and before aerial photos show the shocking extent of the damage caused by the twister in the Missouri city - this image show a six-block path of destruction.

At least 125 people were killed by the twister on Sunday, which authorities say is the deadliest single tornado in America since modern record-keeping began over 60 years ago.

About 1,500 people are unaccounted for in this battered city, a Fire Department official said Tuesday, as rescue workers took advantage of a few hours of sunny weather to continue searching for survivors in buildings leveled by the country’s deadliest tornado in more than 60 years. At least 118 people have died.

While the number of those unaccounted for is alarmingly high in a city with only 49,000 people — and raises the specter of a far higher death count — it may merely be a reflection of the widespread breakdown of communication systems here in the wake of Sunday’s vicious storm. Many residents who fled ahead of the tornado or survived it may be unable to notify the authorities or family members who have reported them missing.

President Barack Obama, heading to London for a visit with the British royals, has sent his "deepest condolences" to the people in tornado-devastated Joplin, Mo.

He said he plans to visit the area on Sunday, the day after he returns from Europe, the Associated Press reported.

"I want everybody in Joplin, everybody in Missouri, everybody in Minnesota, everybody across the Midwest to know that we are here for you," the president said Tuesday in London, the second stop on his four-country, six-day tour of Europe.

A tornado that killed 117 people in Missouri was the single deadliest twister in the past 60 years, according to National Weather Service.

Gov. Jay Nixon's spokesman, Sam Murphey, said Tuesday morning that the death toll in Joplin had risen to 117.

Until this week, the single deadliest tornado on record with the National Weather Service in the past six decades was a twister that killed 116 people in Flint, Mich., in 1953.

The governor told Chris Wragge, co-anchor of CBS' "The Early Show," Tuesday morning that, weather permitting, rescue crews hoped to have combed over "every foot of this town" by 2 p.m. local time (3 p.m. Eastern).

A massive tornado that tore through the southwest Missouri city of Joplin killed at least 89 people, but authorities warned that the death toll could climb Monday as search and rescuers continued their work at sunrise.
City manager Mark Rohr announced the number of known dead at a pre-dawn news conference outside the wreckage of a hospital that took a direct hit from Sunday's storm. Rohr said the twister cut a path nearly six miles long and more than a half-mile wide through the center of town, adding that tornado sirens gave residents about a 20-minute warning before the tornado touched down on the city's west side.