Severe storms and tornadoes have ripped across the US state of Tennessee, shredding at least 40 buildings, causing severe damage in the state capital and killing at least 19 people, officials said on Tuesday.
The storms hit in the early hours of Tuesday morning, blowing down walls and roofs, snapping power lines and bring down trees.
The death toll jumped to 19 on Tuesday, Tennessee Emergency Management Spokeswoman Maggie Hannan said, after police and fire crews spent hours pulling survivors and bodies from wrecked buildings.
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and the use of force legitimized by the state via the monopoly on violence.
Tennessee is a state in the southeastern United States.
It is bordered by eight states, with Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the west, and Missouri to the northwest.
The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms its western border.
Nashville is the state’s capital and largest city, with a 2019 population of 670,820 and a 2019 metro population of 1,934,317. Tennessee’s second largest city is Memphis, which had a population of 651,073 and metro population of 1,346,045 in 2019.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the nation’s most visited national park, is located in the eastern part of the state, and a section of the Appalachian Trail roughly follows the Tennessee–North Carolina border.