By Rich McKay
ATLANTA (Reuters) -Tornadoes killed at least 33 people across several states in the U.S. Midwest and Southeast on Saturday night, CNN reported.
Missouri reported 12 fatalities spanning five counties, the state’s highway patrol posted on X.
Robbie Myers, the director of emergency management in Missouri’s Butler County, told reporters that more than 500 homes, a church and grocery store in the county were destroyed.
A mobile home park had been “totally destroyed,” he said.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves posted on X that six deaths had been reported in the state – one in Covington County, two in Jeff Davis County and three in Walthall County.
According to preliminary assessments, 29 people were injured statewide and 21 counties sustained storm damage, Reeves said.
In Arkansas, three deaths occurred, the state’s Department of Emergency Management said, adding that there were 32 injuries.
Twenty-six tornadoes were reported but not confirmed to have touched down late on Friday night and early on Saturday as a low-pressure system drove powerful thunderstorms across parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi and Missouri, said David Roth, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Aidan Lewis, Rod Nickel, Deepa Babington and William Mallard)
