Tornadoes sweep through Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, killing 14 people

At least 14 people were killed when tornadoes swept through three US states, destroying homes within minutes and cutting off power to hundreds of thousands.

Seven people were killed in northern Texas, five in Arkansas and two in Oklahoma. Dozens more were injured and nearly 500,000 people were without power in several states.

Sheriff Ray Sappington of Cook County, Texas, said the fatalities included two children, ages two and five, and three members of the same family.

“All that’s left is a trail of rubble,” the sheriff told US media, adding that he believes the death toll will rise. “The devastation is pretty bad.”

Images from the county showed a gas station and rest stop almost completely destroyed, with twisted metal strewn across the damaged vehicles.

The tornadoes overturned trucks, closed a highway near Dallas and left tens of thousands of people without power throughout the region.

Meanwhile, lightning, thunder and heavy rain forced the evacuation of around 125,000 spectators as the Indianapolis 500 in Indiana was postponed by several hours on Sunday.

Frank Soltysiak, who lives in a mobile home park in north Texas, said his home was destroyed within minutes of the storm passing through.

Mr Soltysiak was at a nearby restaurant when the owner drove by and “honked and told everyone to get out,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

He grabbed his dog Sampson and sought shelter in the restaurant’s walk-in cooler.

“This was the safest building you could go into. And I come out and everything is destroyed,” he said.

“Within two minutes it’s gone, everything is gone.”

The storms in Texas coincided with record-breaking heat in some parts of the state, with residents receiving triple-digit temperature warnings for Memorial Day weekend.

In Oklahoma, two people were killed and six others injured in Mayes County, the local emergency management agency told the BBC.

Arkansas officials said a 26-year-old woman was found dead outside a destroyed home in Olvey, while another of the state’s four deaths was reported in Benton County. The state also reported several injuries.

Police officials in the city of Rogers, Arkansas, said they rescued several people who were trapped after a tornado downed trees and power lines and damaged gas lines.

By Sunday afternoon, the storm system had moved east, according to the National Weather Service, which warned of severe storms and hail in the affected areas.

According to the website Poweroutage.us, around 470,000 people were without power in states from Texas to Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky.

The latest tornadoes follow another powerful tornado that swept through a rural Iowa town in early May, killing four people.

Government meteorologists have also described this summer as a potentially “exceptional” 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins next month.