At least 22 people has been reportedly dead in tornadoes that hit several U.S. states in the Midwest and Southeast overnight, said TV reports on Sunday.
According to the CNN report, one more people was killed in the central Georgia town of Dublin as storms moved eastwards on Sunday morning.
A nearby town of Kite with about 200 residents was damaged so badly that it seemed "the whole town is gone," state Emergency Management Agency official Lisa Janak told the TV.
The report also said that the storms put more than 80,000 residents in the dark, including those in metro Atlanta, the state's capital.
President George W. Bush sent condolence to the victims and their families earlier on Sunday at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, saying "Mother's day is a sad day for those who lost their lives in Oklahoma, Missouri and Georgia because of the tornadoes."
He also vowed to activate federal government's aid to the tornado-hit states.
Before landing in Georgia, the storms flatted parts of Oklahoma, killing at least seven people, injuring about 150 others and tearing down buildings in a 20-block area, according to a Fox News report.
Rescuers were still searching survivors buried in rubbles and expected the casualty to rise.
In Missouri, a state bordered with Oklahoma, authorities have discovered 14 bodies since they combed farm fields searching bodies and survivors, and sent at least 19 injured to hospital, it said.
David Jankowski, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told reporters that his agency sent a tornado warning on Saturday evening to ask people to take shelters, about 13 minutes ahead the tornado's arriving.
The twister was the deadliest in Oklahoma since a May 3, 1999 twister killing 44 people in the Oklahoma City area.
A total of 13 people were killed in Arkansas on Feb. 5, and seven others died in an outbreak on May 2.
(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2008)
