Shafaq News / A fierce tornado blasted through Little Rock, Arkansas, and neighboring towns on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring dozens as it sheared roofs and walls from many buildings, flipped over vehicles and downed trees and power lines, officials said.
Hours later another tornado or extreme burst of wind was believed to have ripped open the roof of an auditorium in northern Illinois, causing a ceiling collapse, while a rock band was performing on stage, officials said.
One person died and 28 others were rushed by ambulance to area hospitals, five of them with serious injuries, Shawn Schadle, the fire chief in Belvidere, a riverside town near the border with Wisconsin, told reporters.
He said about 260 people were attending the concert at the city's Apollo Threatre, which featured the band Morbid Angel as part of the group's "Tour of Terror."
The mid-afternoon twister in Arkansas and the storm in Illinois were both spawned by one of numerous violent thunderstorms raking a vast swath of the U.S. heartland as part of a much larger expanse of extreme spring weather.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital, the region's only major trauma center, declared a level-1 mass casualty alert after the tornado struck Little Rock, the state's capital and most populous city, at mid-afternoon.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders told a late-night news conference the tornado claimed at least two lives in Wynne, about 100 miles (160 km) east of Little Rock near the Tennessee border.
Nearly 30 people in Little Rock were transported by fire department and other emergency personnel to area hospitals for injuries, Mayor Frank Scott Jr told reporters, adding, "By the grace of God, we have not experienced any fatalities".
Police said several areas in the western end of the city were hardest hit, and the mayor described property damage as "extensive".
In the adjoining town of North Little Rock, just across the Arkansas River from the capital, Baptist Health Medical Center reported treating 11 patients from the storm, one of them in critical condition.
Television station KTHV-TV reported one storm-related death in North Little Rock, but that could not be immediately confirmed.
(Reuters)