A deadly storm swept through the South and Midwest, spawning a swarm of vicious tornadoes that have killed at least six people.
At least 22 tornados were reported in Illinois, eight in Iowa, four in Tennessee, five in Wisconsin and two in Mississippi yesterday.
More than 28 million have been placed under tornado watches from Texas to Michigan.
One of the tornado victims died after the roof of a theatre in Belvidere, Illinois, collapsed with 260 people inside – 28 were injured.
Social media footage appeared to show gig-goers at the Apollo Theater digging through the rubble and twisted metal with their hands to find survivors.
Morbid Angle, a Floridian death metal band which was performing at the time, said on Facebook that the ‘roof, over the area in front of the stage, and marquee’ caved in.
‘We are currently sheltering in place, and want to extend our support and hope that everyone at the show tonight is safe,’ the band said last night.
‘Right now our focus is on making sure everyone in the venue tonight is ok and gets home.’
The National Weather Service reported ‘possible tornado damage’ in Belvidere after ‘reports of a roof collapse on a building at 104 North State Street’.
The Belvidere Police Department said it began receiving calls from inside the venue at 7:48pm.
Police Chief Shane Woody said the scene was ‘chaos, absolute chaos’.
Gig-goer Gabrielle Lewellyn told WTVO-TV: ‘I was there within a minute before it came down.
‘The winds, when I was walking up to the building, it went like from zero to a thousand within five seconds.’
While in the Illinois village of Sherman, more than a dozen homes were crumbled by a tornado. The catastrophe was worsened by major gas leaks, electricity outages and downed power lines.
Tens of thousands are now without power, including 81,000 in Indiana, 55,000 in Arkansas and 43,000 in Illinois, according to utility aggregator PowerOutage.us.
In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Sanders declared a state of emergency yesterday afternoon after one died in Little Rock and two died in Wynee in Cross County, while another death was reported in Pulaski County.
Sanders wrote on Twitter: ‘Praying for all those who were and remain in the path of this storm.
‘Arkansans must continue to stay weather aware as storms are continuing to move through.’
The tornado churned through Little Rock, the state capital, at around 2:25pm. It shredded a shopping mall and damaged homes and businesses, city police said on Twitter.
Footage showed the extent of the damage, with upturned cars, uprooted trees and gutted buildings.
It then crossed the Arkansas River into North Little Rock.
The town of Wynee, around 100 miles to the east of Little Rock, was ‘cut in half by damage from east to west’, mayor Jennifer Hobbs told CNN.
Wynne’s Police Chief Richard Dennis told NBC affiliate KAIT that the city suffered ‘total destruction’.
Two more people died in Sullivan County in Indiana.
Five others were taken to hospital after a tornado touched down in Covington, Tennessee, a spokesperson for Baptist Memorial Health Care said.
Towering tornadoes were also seen in Sigourery, around 70 miles southwest of Cedar Rapids in Iowa, and Coralville.
The surge of tornados was spawned by supercells, powerful thunderstorms with rotating updrafts that can overpower weather from 20 miles away.
Meteorologists expect another wave of intense storms to sweep through the same areas including parts of Mississippi already devastated last week by tornadoes that left at least 26 people dead.
President Joe Biden visited among the hardest hit communities, Rolling Fork, yesterday – more than a dozen people were killed.
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