At least 26 people have been killed and dozens more injured after storms and tornadoes tore through towns and cities across Southern and Midwestern parts of the United States.
Several tornadoes touched down on Friday night across at least eight states, laying waste to homes and businesses and splintering trees, as part of a sprawling storm system that brought wildfires to the southern plains states and blizzard conditions to the upper Midwest,AlJazeera reported.
Tens of thousands lost power as the storms smothered a swath of the country home to some 85 million people.
The dead included nine in the state of Tennessee, four in neighbouring Arkansas, and four in Illinois. Other deaths were reported in the states of Indiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency and activated 100 members of the National Guard to help local authorities respond.
Four of the deaths in Arkansas were reported in the town of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people. Stunned residents of the town woke on Saturday to find the high school’s roof shredded and its windows blown out. Huge trees lay on the ground, their stumps reduced to nubs. Broken walls, windows and roofs pocked homes and businesses.
Debris and memories of regular life lay scattered inside the shells of homes and on lawns: clothing, insulation, roofing paper, toys, splintered furniture, a pick-up truck with its windows shattered.
Ashley Macmillan told The Associated Press news agency that she, her husband and their children huddled with their dogs in a small bathroom as a tornado passed, “praying and saying goodbye to each other, because we thought we were dead”. A falling tree seriously damaged their home, but no one in the family was hurt.
MNA/PR