At least 26 people have died and many were injured following storms and tornadoes that tore through towns and cities in Southern and Midwestern parts of the United States. 

The dead included nine in Tennessee, four in neighbouring Arkansas, and four in Illinois. Other deaths were reported in Indiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. 

The Tornado outbreak brought more than 50 tornado reports in at least seven states, including Arkansas and Tennessee, where multiple deaths were reported. The tornadoes crushed homes and businesses, ripped roofs off buildings, splintered trees, and sent vehicles flying. 

At least seven people died after two back-to-back lines of storms hit McNairy County, Tennessee, where authorities searched through collapsed buildings Saturday evening. 

In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency and activated 100 members of the National Guard to help local authorities respond. 

She said she had spoken to President Joe Biden, who had promised to expedite federal aid.

Four of the deaths in Arkansas were reported in the town of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people. Residents of the town woke up to find Huge trees lying on the ground, their stumps reduced to nubs. Broken walls, windows, and roofs pocked homes and businesses.

Ashley Macmillan told The Associated Press news agency that she, her husband, and their children huddled with their dogs in a small bathroom as a tornado passed. 

“ We prayed and said goodbye to each other because we thought we were dead”.

“We could feel the house shaking; we could hear loud noises, dishes rattling. And then it just got calm,” she said. 

In Belvidere, Illinois, part of the roof of the Apollo Theatre collapsed as about 260 people were attending a heavy metal concert.

“The lights go out, I hear a noise. Everything crashes down,” Jessica Hernandez, who was inside the theatre on Friday, told Reuters in an interview. 

The concertgoers were able to pull victims out of the rubble themselves. About 40 people were injured and a 50-year-old man was already dead before the emergency workers arrived. 

In the neighbouring state of Indiana, three people were killed by a storm in Sullivan County, on the border with Illinois, several US media reported, citing local authorities. 

Overnight tornadoes also claimed one life in Pontotoc County, Mississippi, and one in Madison County, Alabama, emergency officials reported Saturday.

The tornadoes heavily disrupted power in most of the cities they hit. More than 600,000 homes were without power due to the storms and tornadoes, according to the poweroutage.us website. 

The highest number of outages on Saturday afternoon were in the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. 

President Biden, on Friday, visited the Mississippi city of Rolling Fork, one of the worst-hit areas in last week’s tornado.

In December 2021, tornadoes killed about 80 people in Kentucky.