Tornadoes leave 45 dead as they sweep across US
Tornadoes killed at least 45 people in the southern US as homes were ripped from their foundations and cars were overturned.
In North Carolina alone 21 died as more than 60 tornadoes struck two of its counties.
In Askewville, Justin Dunlow, whose home was destroyed, lay on top of his three-year-old daughter and five-year-old son to protect them.
The 23-year-old roofer said: "I just started praying, and the wall fell on top of us and that's what kept us there. I can replace the house, but I can't replace my babies. And that's what I thought about. I'm alive. My babies are alive."
His neighbour, Richard Watford, said he found the body of another man face down on the ground, where the man's house had been. A few wooden planks provided the only sign that a house had ever been there.
Tania Valle, 20, went to a trailer park in Raleigh, the state capital, to check on her mother and found a tree had split her mother's mobile home in half, leaving only one room intact. "She's so nervous. She's sad," Ms Valle said. "She said everything got destroyed."
It was North Carolina's deadliest week for tornadoes since 1984, when 22 twisters killed 42 people and injured hundreds.
State governor Beverly Perdue declared a state of emergency and toured the hardest-hit areas, including Raleigh.
Scott Sharp, a local meteorologist, said such conditions were extremely rare in North Carolina.
"The atmosphere was unstable, which allows air to rise and fall quickly, creating winds of hurricane strength," he said. "There was also plenty of moisture, which acts as fuel for the violent storms, and winds at different heights were moving in different directions, creating the spin that makes tornadoes."
The storms began on Thursday in Oklahoma, where two people died, before cutting across the Deep South on Friday and hitting North Carolina and Virginia on Saturday. Authorities said seven people died in Arkansas, seven in Alabama, seven in Virginia and one in Mississippi.
