Arkansas town 'basically cut in half' as tornadoes kill 26 in US South and Midwest

US South and Midwest, torn apart by devastating tornadoes over the weekend, are picking up the pieces on Sunday after the storms left at least 26 people dead. Meanwhile, the Southern Plains are preparing to battle another round of severe storms later today. Over 50 tornadoes ripped apart several regions in seven states, wreaking unprecedented destruction, with houses and businesses crushed, building without roofs and vehicles scattered.

Arkansas, Tennessee and Indiana have reported multiple fatalities, with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources reporting two new deaths at a campground in McCormick’s Creek State Park in Owen County.

In Wynne, Arkansas, four people have died due to the tornadoes. The town is situated about 50 miles west of the state’s border with Tennessee and is “basically cut in half", Mayor Jennifer Hobbs said.

Mayor Hobbs watched the tornado approach the town and described how it was seeing the twister first-hand.

Wynne, Arkansas, has been “basically cut in half by damage from east to west,” Hobbs said. “I don’t know how to put it into words. It was devastating. It’s much different seeing it firsthand than it is when you see it on TV hit other communities,” she added.

The town is home to about 8,000 residents. Most of the homes here have been completely crushed into piles of wood and roofs of other houses have been ripped off, CNN said, referring to drone footage of the area.

“We have a lot of families that are completely devastated. Have no home at all, no belongings survived,” the mayor added.

The storm was so massive that it peeled the turf off a high school’s football field.

In McNairy County, Tennessee, at least ninepeople lost their lives as two back-to-back lines of storms hit the region. The storm “crossed our county completely from one side to the other,” Sheriff Guy Buck told CNN.

A total of17 deaths were reported in Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama in the south, Indiana and Illinois in the Midwest, and Delaware in the mid-Atlantic.

Four people were killed in Illinois, with three others reported dead in Crawford County, Illinois, following the collapse of a residential structure, according to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

Indiana, Iowa, Illinois and Arkansas governors declared emergency or disaster in their respective states.

Meanwhile, Little Rock, Arkansas, sustained heavy damage, with Mayor Frank Scott Jr. saying no fatalities were reported as of Saturday afternoon. The administration is now working on recovery efforts. According to the National Weather Service, an EF-3 tornado with estimated peak winds of 165 mph roared through Pulaski and Lonoke counties in Arkansas, killing one person in North Little Rock and four people in Wynne. The twister impacted 2,600 structures in Little Rock and 50 people were sent to hospitals, the mayor said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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