Dhaka – Eleven people are reported to have been killed in Texas after new tornadoes, raising the death toll to 26 in a week of storms in several US states.
Local media said five people in cars were probably blown off a motorway in Garland, near Dallas. Another three bodies were found in nearby towns, reports BBC.
Ten people earlier died in Mississippi and six in Tennessee. Arkansas and Alabama each reported one fatality.
The storms across the South have been unusually powerful for winter.Meanwhile, officials said Texas and Oklahoma could be hit with a “historic blizzard”, bringing up to 16in (41cm) of snow.
Motorists were warned they could face icy roads.
Garland police believed that “winds from a tornado that passed through” the town late on Saturday were the cause of the accidents, Melinda Urbina from the Dallas County Sheriff’s office told the BBC.
She said the winds “tossed the cars around”, and the vehicles were later found below Interstate 30, about 15 miles (24km) north-east of Dallas.
Ms Urbina also urged local residents to stay off the roads.
Two people were found dead at a petrol station in Copeville, and a third was killed in Blue Ridge, reports in local media said. Details of their deaths were not immediately known.
The National Weather Service confirmed that tornadoes had touched down near Dallas and several other towns.
The deaths in Dallas come as much of the south-central region of the US is hit by severe weather.
In Mississippi, officials reported that 56 people had been injured and more than 400 houses destroyed or damaged in storms.
At least 20 tornadoes hit the state, knocking down trees and leaving thousands without power over Christmas holidays.
One large tornado reportedly touched land in Mississippi and tore a path more than 100 miles long to Tennessee.
While extreme weather in the US before Christmas is not unknown, meteorologists say that unseasonably high temperatures in some areas contributed to the severity of the storms.
One year ago a tornado hit south-eastern Mississippi, killing five people and injuring dozens more.
A storm on Christmas Day in 2012 which included several tornadoes damaged homes from Texas to Alabama.- UNB/AP
