A “catastrophic” tornado tore through the southern US state of Arkansas and killed three people on Friday, while severe storms further north caused the roof of an Illinois theater to collapse, leaving one dead and 28 injured, authorities said.
A “catastrophic” tornado tore through the southern US state of Arkansas and killed three people on Friday, while severe storms further north caused the roof of an Illinois theater to collapse, leaving one dead and 28 injured, authorities said.
The Arkansas tornado whipped across the state in the afternoon, causing what Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders called “widespread damage.”
Sanders said two people were killed in the town of Wynne in the eastern part of Arkansas, while an official in Pulaski County, which surrounds the capital Little Rock, confirmed a fatality there.
“Significant damage has occurred in Central Arkansas,” Sanders wrote on Twitter.
Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said “close to 30 individuals have been transported to our local hospitals.”
The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings for parts of the nearby states of Tennessee, Illinois and Iowa.
In the evening, calamity struck Belvidere, Illinois, when severe weather caused the roof and part of the facade of the Apollo Theater to collapse while a heavy metal band played on stage inside.
