Sixteen dead as tornadoes rip through central and southern US
Forecasters have warned that more storms and hurricane-force winds are due on Saturday night, as thousands of people were left without power.
Ten people were killed in Missouri, officials said, after twisters tore through the state.
One man died after a tornado passed straight through his house.
'It was unrecognisable as a home. Just a debris field,' said Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County.
'The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls', he said, adding that emergency responders managed to save one woman from the property.
Several other people suffered injuries, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
The state's governor warned that more severe weather was expected on Saturday, including the risk of further tornadoes.
Three people were also killed in Arkansas and 29 others were injured across eight counties as storms passed through the state overnight.
'We have teams out surveying the damage from last night's tornadoes and have first responders on the ground to assist,' Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on X.
'In the meantime, I just released $250,000 (£193,000) from our Disaster Recovery fund to provide resources for this operation for each of the impacted communities.'
A further three people were killed in car crashes on Friday during a dust storm in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle.
About 138 million people are at risk of severe weather in central and southern US states.
Tornado warnings are in place in parts of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Indiana and Kentucky.
The Storm Prediction Centre said fast-moving storms could result in hail the size of baseballs, but the greatest threat would come from winds near or exceeding hurricane force, with gusts of 100mph possible.
High-speed winds are predicted from the Canadian border to Texas, threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and wildfire risk in warmer, drier areas to the south.
Evacuations were ordered in some parts of Oklahoma, with more than 130 fires reported across the state.
The State Patrol said winds were so strong that they toppled several tractor-trailers.
Bill Bunting, deputy director of the National Weather Service's storm prediction centre, said the storm was unique because of its 'large size and intensity'.
He added: 'And so what that is doing is producing really substantial impacts over a very large area.'
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