Strong tornadoes in the US leave at least 21 dead in seven states

At least 21 people have been killed by strong tornadoes in seven states in the central and southern United States this weekend, according to local authorities. The storms have left hundreds of thousands of people without power, caused extensive property damage to homes and businesses and, in Illinois, collapsed the roof of a packed theater hosting a heavy metal concert.

The most recent deaths have been confirmed in the state of Tennessee, where at least seven people have died in McNairy County. Other victims have lost their lives in the town of Wynne, in Arkansas; in Sullivan, Indiana; and in the states of Alabama, Illinois, and Mississippi. In Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, more than 2,000 buildings were damaged by the passage of a tornado on Friday that also left at least one dead, according to the city council. Dozens of people have been injured by the passage of these winds.

“The impact has been devastating” in Little Rock, its mayor, Frank Scott, told the television network CNN. “In a matter of minutes (the tornado) went through the entire west side of the city … it came out of nowhere.”

More than 30,000 people were still without electricity after noon in that city. In the hard-hit states, that number rose to about 400,000.

In Belvidere, Illinois, about 260 people were in the Apollo Theater when winds tore the roof off the building. At least one person died and another forty are injured, two of them very serious.

The winds, the result of a storm front in the central and southern United States, came just hours after the country’s president, Joe Biden, visited the town of Rolling Fork, Mississippi, where tornadoes left extensive damage last week. pass. A total of 26 people lost their lives in that state.

Biden spoke by phone this Saturday with the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell, who coordinates the government’s response to the natural disaster, as reported by the White House in a statement. The president of the United States has also spoken with the governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as well as with Scott and the mayor of Wynn, Jennifer Hobbs. That last town is one of the most affected in Arkansas by tornadoes.

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