At least 36 people have been killed as tornadoes and high winds ripped through parts of the US.

The huge storm, which also produced dust storms and icy conditions, destroyed homes, wiped out schools and toppled lorries across the central and southern areas of the country.

National Weather Service meteorologist Cody Snell said tornado watches remain in place for parts of the Carolinas, east Georgia and northern Florida.

At least 36 people have been killed in seven states, including Missouri, where scattered twisters killed a dozen people, according to authorities.

Dakota Henderson, who lives in the state, said he and others found five bodies in the debris outside what was left of his aunt’s house on Friday night as they tried to rescue trapped neighbours.

“It was a very rough deal,” he said on Saturday. “It’s really disturbing for what happened to the people, the casualties last night.”

Tornadoes continued on Saturday night as the Storm Prediction Center warned a region stretching from eastern Louisiana and Mississippi through Alabama, western Georgia and Florida was most at risk.

Bailey Dillon, 24, and her fiance, Caleb Barnes, watched from their front porch in Tylertown, Mississippi, as a massive twister struck an area about half a mile away near an RV park, before they drove over to help.

They filmed snapped trees, levelled buildings and overturned vehicles as Ms Dillon described the damage as “catastrophic”.

“Everything was destroyed,” she said.

“Homes and everything were destroyed all around it,” she said. “Schools and buildings are just completely gone.”

The dynamic storm, which was given a rare “high risk” designation from weather forecasters, has been blamed for deadly dust storms, icy weather and severe thunderstorms on Sunday.

State of emergency

Mississippi governor Tate Reeves said six people died and more were missing as storms moved further east into Alabama, where three people including an 82-year-old woman were reported dead.

In Arkansas, where three deaths have been confirmed, governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency.

An emergency was also declared in Georgia, where a National Weather Service tornado watch posted early on Sunday warnings of isolated tornadoes, hail and gusts of up to 70mph.

Dust storms and wildfires

Dust storms caused by high winds were blamed for 11 deaths on Friday as eight people died in a pileup involving around 50 vehicles in Kansas, while three people were killed in car crashes in Texas.

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

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Evacuations were ordered in some areas of Oklahoma, with more than 130 fires reported across the state and nearly 300 homes damaged or destroyed.

The state’s governor Kevin Stitt said some 266 square miles had burned and that he had lost a home of his own on a ranch northeast of Oklahoma City.

At least 26 people are reported to have died in powerful storms across the United States.

The number of fatalities increased after eight people died in a highway pile-up caused by a dust storm in Sherman County, Kansas on Friday. At least 50 vehicles were involved.

Car crashes during a dust storm also killed three people in Amarillo, Texas.

Authorities in Missouri say 12 people died after tornadoes struck the state, with another three deaths reported in Arkansas.

Around 108 million people remain under widespread wind, flash flooding and wildfire alerts in central and southern US states. Hundreds of thousands of households are also without power.

Tornado warnings are in place in parts of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Indiana, and Kentucky as a massive storm system moves across the country.

Many areas across southern states are, or will soon be, dealing with widespread flash flooding, the National Weather Service warned. It added that the flooding could turn deadly.

In Butler County, Missouri, on the border with Arkansas, local coroner Jim Akers said the man and his wife were sleeping when the tornado struck.

Rescuers were able to pull the woman from the debris – but could not save the man whose mobile home was ripped apart.

“It was unrecognisable as a home. Just a debris field,” he said, describing the scene. “The floor was upside down. We were walking on walls.”

Large vehicles were also pictured overturned across the state.

Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned the recovery could take months after surveying damage from an EF3 tornado in Cave City, in the north of the state.

A storm ranked as EF3, on a scale of one to five, requires wind speeds of between 136-165mph (218-265kph).

Hail the size of baseballs

“It’s hard to look at this level of devastation and not be heartbroken,” she said. “It’s a whole other world when you see it up close and personal.”

Winds gusting up to 80mph (130kph) were predicted from the Canadian border to Texas, threatening blizzard conditions in colder northern areas and wildfire risk in warmer, drier places to the south.

Hail was also a hazard, some the size of baseballs were reported in Christian County, the US weather service said.

Fatal pile-ups during dust storms

In the Texas city of Amarillo, three people were killed in car crashes caused by a dust storm on Friday, according to the state’s public safety department.

One of the deaths happened after three lorries collided with four other vehicles in Palmer County, Bovina’s fire chief Cesar Marquez said. Another occurred after a pile-up of an estimated 38 cars.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” public safety department sergeant Cindy Barkley said, calling the near-zero visibility a nightmare. “We couldn’t tell that they were all together until the dust kind of settled.”

Evacuations were ordered in some Oklahoma communities as more than 130 fires were reported across the state. Nearly 300 homes were damaged or destroyed, said governor Kevin Stitt.

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Three deaths happened due to storm damage in Independence County, Arkansas on Friday night, with a further 29 people injured across eight different counties, authorities said.

More than 260,000 households are without power in midwestern and southern states, according to the monitoring website PowerOutage.us.

The Storm Prediction Center at the National Weather Service issued an update on Sunday, warning of a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms.

The warning covers an area from the extreme southeastern part of Mississippi, across much of Alabama, into western Georgia and the western Florida panhandle.

US President Donald Trump has launched strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, he also warned Iran the country’s support for the group must “end immediately”.

The Iran-backed Houthis reported a series of explosions in Yemen‘s capital Sanaa on Saturday evening.

The Houthi-run health ministry said in a post on X that at least nine civilians have been killed and nine others injured.

Images shared online show plumes of black smoke over the area of the city’s airport complex, which includes a sprawling military facility.

Mr Trump said the strikes were over the group’s attacks against ships in the Red Sea.

“Your time is up, and your attacks must stop, starting today. If they don’t, hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before,” he said.

The president said Iran would be held “fully accountable” for the actions of its proxy, adding: “And we won’t be nice about it!”

The strikes come days after the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli vessels sailing in waters off Yemen in response to Israel’s blockade on Gaza, although there have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.

Earlier this month, Israel halted all aid coming into Gaza and warned of “additional consequences” for Hamas if their fragile ceasefire is not extended as negotiations continue over starting a second phase.

“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Mr Trump wrote.

“These relentless assaults have cost the US and World Economy many BILLIONS of Dollars while, at the same time, putting innocent lives at risk.”

The Houthis launched more than 100 attacks targeting shipping from November 2023, saying they were in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

The US, Israel and Britain have previously hit Houthi-held areas in Yemen.

According to a US official, the operation – the first strike on the Houthis under the second Trump administration – was conducted solely by the US.

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The Houthi media office said the strikes hit “a residential neighbourhood” in Sanaa’s northern district of Shouab.

Sanaa residents said at least four airstrikes hit the Eastern Geraf neighbourhood in the district, terrifying women and children in the area.

“The explosions were very strong,” said Abdallah al Alffi. “It was like an earthquake.”

Similar missile strikes against the Houthis were done multiple times by Joe Biden’s administration in response to frequent attacks by the Houthis against commercial and military vessels in the region.