Most of the fatalities – twelve people – are found in the state of Missouri, where several tornadoes have ravaged, according to the state police on Saturday. A man is said to have lost his life when the whirlwind tore his house apart. Several people have also been injured.
Eight people have died in a massive series of crashes involving at least 50 vehicles due to a sandstorm in Kansas. Three fatalities and many injuries are reported since a storm swept through Arkansas on Friday night. In Mississippi, six people have died and three are missing, according to Governor Tate Reeves.
In addition, three people died when they crashed their cars during a storm in the city of Amarillo in northern Texas on Friday.
The storm system is moving eastward through the USA and, apart from deadly winds of hurricane force, it has caused hundreds of forest and terrain fires.
There is a risk of powerful storms and hurricanes in parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida.
In Oklahoma, over 300 houses have been damaged or destroyed, and large areas of land have burned down.
The extreme weather is expected to affect an area where more than 100 million people live, from the Canadian border in the north to Texas in the south. According to experts, it is not unusual to have this type of bad weather in March.
The unique thing about this is its size and intensity, says Bill Bunting at the meteorological agency NWS office in Oklahoma.
