A tornado in northern Texas has killed at least two people and left multiple injured, the New York Times reported on Sunday, citing Ray Sappington, the sheriff of Cooke County.
Towns in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas were hit by tornadoes on Saturday night, leaving trucks overturned, homes damaged, and nearly 250,000 households without power, the report said.
“We’re in the very early stages of the rescue operations. There has been heavy damage that we can tell,” Justin Stamps, the police chief of Valley View, a city north of Dallas told Reuters, adding that a command centre has been set up.
Oklahoma officials activated an Emergency Operations Center to coordinate efforts statewide in anticipation of the extreme weather, governor Kevin Stitt said in a Facebook post on Saturday.
Police officials in Rogers, Arkansas responded to people who were trapped after a tornado led to gas leaks and downed trees and power lines, cutting off electricity in large parts of the city of Rogers, the police department said in a Facebook post.
Russians attacked a crowded DIY hardware store in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday, killing at least two people, injuring several others and sparking a massive fire that firefighters are struggling to contain, local officials said.
Oleg Syniehubov, Kharkiv regional governor, said via the Telegram messaging app that two guided bombs hit a large DIY store in a residential area. He said 24 people were injured and two people were confirmed dead.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said many people were missing, but did not immediately provide an estimate. According to the authorities, up to 200 people could be in the hypermarket during this riot.
“The attack was aimed at a shopping center, where there are a lot of people – this is a clear act of terrorism,” said Terekhov. Reuters television footage showed a large cloud of smoke rising into the sky from the site and fire and rescue vehicles heading to the scene.
Rescuers, medical personnel and journalists fled the building and lay down, fearing the possibility of a second attack – a common occurrence of recent Russian attacks. Ukraine’s second largest city, located 30 kilometers from the Russian border, Kharkiv has been the target of weeks of Russian attacks. Russian forces also entered the northern part of Kharkiv region earlier this month. Witnesses described a frightening situation at the store.
“I am at my workplace. I heard the first shot and… and my colleague, we fell to the ground. There is a second effect and we are covered in debris. Then we started crawling to a higher place,” said Dmytro Syrotenko, who had a big face.
The 26-year-old told Reuters that a rescuer helped him, several colleagues and shoppers brought him to safety. Immediately after the strike, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a new call for additional air defense to be able to protect the city of about 1.3 million people.
Moscow denies that it deliberately killed civilians, but thousands of people have been killed and wounded during the 27-month-long offensive in Ukraine.