Tornadoes that ravage US kill at least 26

NEW YORK/ANKARA

Tornadoes that ravaged the US have killed at least 26 people, injuring dozens across southern and midwestern parts of the country, according to officials on Sunday.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said over 60 tornadoes have been reported in the past 24 hours in a wide area covering eight states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Tennessee, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

While the tornadoes claimed nine lives in Tennessee, five in Arkansas, three in Indiana, and four in Illinois, other deaths from the storms were reported in Alabama and Mississippi.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency amid severe storm warnings on Saturday.

Houses and workplaces were heavily damaged and thousands were left without power in regions hit by tornadoes and storms.

The NWS also confirmed that the tornado that hit Arkansas state’s capital Little Rock was a “high-end” EF3 with maximum winds estimated at 164 miles per hour (265 kilometers per hour).

It has issued storm warnings for Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

Around 530,000 households were left without power in parts of the US, including more than 200,000 in the state of Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us, a website that tracks power outages.

The latest round of severe weather came one week after a series of deadly storms ripped through the southeast with one tornado killing at least 26 people in Rolling Fork, Mississippi.