At least 34 killed as tornadoes and dust storms rip through parts of US
Missouri recorded 12 fatalities, with deaths also recorded in Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Mississippi after tornadoes ripped apart homes. The massive weather system has also produced deadly dust storms, wildfires and hail the size of baseballs.
Sunday 16 March 2025 07:13, UK
At least 34 people are reported to have died in powerful storms across the United States.
The number of fatalities increased after eight people died in a highway pile-up caused by a dust storm in Sherman County, Kansas on Friday. At least 50 vehicles were involved.
Car crashes also killed four people during a dust storm in Texas.
Authorities in Missouri say 12 people died after tornadoes struck the state.
Officials have also reported six deaths in Mississippi, some three fatalities in Arkansas, and a single death in Oklahoma, which has declared a state of emergency.
Around 108 million people remain under widespread wind, flash flooding and wildfire alerts in central and southern US states.
More than 282,000 households are without power in midwestern and southern states, according to the monitoring website PowerOutage.us.
Tornado warnings are in place in parts of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Indiana, and Kentucky as a massive storm system moves across the country.
A video posted to Facebook showed storm debris in Kentwood, Louisiana and emergency responders.
Evacuations were ordered in some communities in Oklahoma as more than 130 fires were reported across the state.
Nearly 300 homes have been damaged or destroyed across some 266 square miles (689 square kilometers), according to governor Kevin Stitt.
In Butler County, Missouri, on the border with Arkansas, local coroner Jim Akers said the man and his wife were sleeping when a tornado struck there.
Rescuers were able to pull the woman from the debris - but could not save the man whose mobile home was ripped apart.
"It was unrecognisable as a home. Just a debris field," he said, describing the scene. "The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls."
Large vehicles were also pictured overturned across the state.
Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned the recovery could take months after surveying damage from an EF3 tornado in Cave City, in the north of the state.
A storm ranked as EF3, on a scale of one to five, requires wind speeds of between 136-165mph (218-265kph).
"It's hard to look at this level of devastation and not be heartbroken," she said. "It's a whole other world when you see it up close and personal."
In Mississippi, governor Tate Reeves confirmed six deaths in three counties and said three more people were missing.
Hail the size of baseballs
Winds gusting up to 80mph (130kph) were predicted from the Canadian border to Texas, threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and wildfire risk in warmer, drier places to the south.
Hail was also a hazard, some the size of baseballs were reported in Christian County, the US weather service said.
Fatal pile-ups during dust storms
In Texas, four people were killed in car crashes around the city of Amarillo caused by a dust storm on Friday, according to the state's public safety department.
One of the deaths happened after three lorries collided with four other vehicles in Palmer County, Bovina's fire chief Cesar Marquez said. Another occurred after a pile-up of an estimated 38 cars.
"It's the worst I've ever seen," public safety department sergeant Cindy Barkley said, calling the near-zero visibility a nightmare.
"We couldn't tell that they were all together until the dust kind of settled."
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Three deaths happened due to storm damage in Independence County, Arkansas on Friday night, with a further 29 people injured across eight different counties, authorities said.
The Storm Prediction Center at the National Weather Service (NWS) issued an update on Sunday, warning of a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms.
The warning covers an area from the extreme southeastern part of Mississippi, across much of Alabama, into western Georgia and the western Florida panhandle. The NWS also said there was the potential for deadly flash flooding.