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Severe storms on Saturday swept across the central United States and killed at least 20 people and injured hundreds.
Homes in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma were destroyed, and tens of thousands of residents lost power through the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
Seven people, including two children, died in Cooke County, Texas after a tornado ripped through a rural area near a mobile home park, according to the county sheriff. The children were ages two and five.
In Arkansas, eight people died statewide, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a Sunday news conference. An emergency official said two of the deaths were caused by circumstances of the storm, including a heart attack and loss of oxygen supply because of power outages.
Three people died in Kentucky and two in Mayes County, Oklahoma, according to local officials. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday declared a state of emergency.
"Severe weather continues to move through the commonwealth with multiple reports of wind damage and tornadoes," he said on the social media site X, formerly Twitter. "I have issued a State of Emergency to ensure the communities impacted have the resources they need to respond."
One person died in Louisville, Kentucky after a tree fell on top of him.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said about 100 people were injured and over 200 homes and buildings were demolished. He made a disaster declaration for at least 108 counties in Texas on Sunday.
"The hopes and dreams of Texas families and small businesses have literally been crushed by storm after storm," Abbott said.
Adverse weather in Houston, one of the largest cities in the U.S., killed eight people in early May, part of a series of deadly weather conditions causing destruction across the nation this month.
The severe weather is expected to head east over the remainder of the holiday weekend. Storms are predicted to hit Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Forecasters say extreme weather is also predicted to move into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.