Tornadoes and winds kill at least 37 people in US

Violent tornadoes and high winds flattened homes, wiped out schools and toppled trailers as a storm that killed at least 37 people ripped its way across the central and southern US.

Scattered twisters killed at least a dozen people in Missouri, authorities said.

Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing trapped neighbours found five bodies scattered in the debris on Friday night outside what remained of his aunt’s house in hard-hit Wayne County, Missouri.

“It was a very rough deal last night,” Mr Henderson said on Saturday, not far from the splintered home from which he said they rescued his aunt through a window of the only room left standing. “It’s really disturbing for what happened to the people, the casualties last night.”

Coroner Jim Akers of nearby Butler County described the “unrecognisable home” where one man was killed as “just a debris field.”

“The floor was upside down,” he said. “We were walking on walls.”

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced six people died in three counties and three more people were missing late on Saturday as storms moved further east into Alabama, where damaged homes and impassable roads were reported.

Officials confirmed three deaths in Arkansas, where Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp did the same in anticipation of the storm’s shift eastward.

Dust storms spurred by the system’s early high winds claimed almost a dozen lives on Friday.

Eight people died in a Kansas highway pile-up involving at least 50 vehicles, according to the state highway patrol.

Authorities said three people also were killed in car crashes during a dust storm in Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle.

The extreme weather conditions were forecast to impact an area that is home to more than 100 million people with winds threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and fanning the wildfire risk in warmer, drier places to the south.

Evacuations were ordered in some Oklahoma communities as more than 130 fires were reported across the state and nearly 300 homes were damaged or destroyed.

Governor Kevin Stitt said at a Saturday news conference that 266 square miles had burned, sharing that he lost a home of his own on a ranch northeast of Oklahoma City.

To the north, the National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings for parts of far western Minnesota and far eastern South Dakota starting early on Saturday. Snow accumulations of 7.6 to 15.2 centimetres were expected, with up to 30 centimetres possible.

Winds were expected to cause whiteout conditions.

Experts said it is not unusual to see such weather extremes in March.

Significant tornadoes continued late on Saturday with the region at highest risk stretching from eastern Louisiana and Mississippi through Alabama, western Georgia and the Florida panhandle, the Storm Prediction Centre said.