WASHINGTON // Powerful tornadoes killed at least 18 people as they flipped cars, ripped up homes and uprooted trees across south-central United States, emergency officials reported on Monday.
Rescuers worked through Sunday night using searchlights in blacked-out areas as they sifted through mountains of rubble searching for survivors.
Forecasters warned the twisters would continue to threaten much of the region until Tuesday.
The Arkansas department of emergency management said 15 people were killed when tornadoes touched down on Sunday, while an official with the Oklahoma emergency management agency said there were at least two tornado victims in the state. Local media reported another fatality in the state of Iowa.
“It’s chaos right now,” the mayor of the Arkansas town of Vilonia, James Firestone, told CNN late on Sunday as emergency crews clawed through the debris in some of the hardest-hit areas.
The central part of the town of 4,000 “seems like it’s completely levelled. There’s a few buildings partially standing, gas lines spewing. Fire lines down. We’ve had some casualties.”
Mr Firestone said police and firefighters from nearby cities as well as National Guard troops were heading to Vilonia.
Twisters also devastated large sections of the town of Mayflower, with a population of 2,300, just north-west of the Arkansas state capital Little Rock.
Pictures of tornado damage posted by Arkansas TV station THV 11 showed big articulated lorries crushed like empty cans, homes ripped in half and whole residential areas reduced to rubble.
Officials said that parts of Interstate 40, a major east-west highway across the United States, was closed due to debris and overturned vehicles in the Mayflower area.
* Agence France-Presse
