LITTLE ROCK, ARKANANAS: A violent storm with high winds and heavy rains struck Southern and Midwestern sections of the United States before it headed east, leaving at least 26 dead and score others injured.
According to officials, five people were killed in Arkansas as rescuers sifted through rubble to find more possible victims after tornadoes hit the state on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Tennessee health department confirmed seven weather-related deaths in McNairy County along with the Mississippi border. Tennessee Emergency Management Agency Director Patrick Sheehan said that the number of people wound and damaged building in several counties were not yet determined.
In Madison County, Alabama, a 90-year-old woman, identified as Ovie Lasater, was killed after a tornado hit her house, county coroner Tyler Berryhill said, according to Reuters.
Fox News reported one death in Pontotoc County in neighbouring Mississippi.
In Illinois, at least three people were killed in Crawford County after the a residential structure collapsed, the state Emergency Management Agency said.
These were in addition to the death of a 50-year-old man who was killed in Belvidere, a city in northern Illinois, after the roof of a theatre collapsed with at least 260 people inside. Senior emergency management official Dan Zaccard in Boone County, said that the incident left 40 people injured.
The crowd at the Apollo Theatre was watching a concert featuring the heavy-metal group Morbid Angel that was on its “Tour of Terror.”
One man was killed in Sussex County, Delaware, after a line of powerful storms sliced through the region, an ABC News affiliate said.
The National Weather Service warned of more thunderstorms moving across the eastern third of the US, possibly resulting in power outages and uprooting of trees from powerful winds with gusts over 60 mph.
The stroms and strong winds sheared roofs and walls from many structure in Arkansas, flipped over vehicles and fell trees and power lines in Little Rock and northeast of the state capital, officials said.
The poweful blast of extreme spring weather swept much of the US, menacing the country’s midsection from Texas to the Great Lakes with powerful thunderstorms and tornados.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said earlier there were five confirmed dead in the state.
Four fatalities were reported in Wynne in Arkansas , about 100 miles east of Little Rock, Cross County Coroner Eli Long said.
At least one man was killed and over 50 people were shifted to hospitals in North Little Rock after they were injured by tonadoes, Pulaski County spokesperson Madeline Roberts told the Washington Post.
