In the United States, violent storms kill at least 21 people in Missouri and Kentucky

“Our city is in mourning this evening,” said Cara Spencer, mayor of St. Louis, one of the largest cities in the U.S. state of Missouri, on Friday, May 16. Violent storms swept across the southeast of the country, leaving at least 21 dead and others injured in the states of Missouri and Kentucky. The toll is “expected to rise,” according to The New York Times . which states that "most of the casualties appear to have been in Laurel County [in Kentucky], about 240 kilometers southeast of Louisville, where the sheriff's office had earlier indicated that a tornado had killed at least nine people." Numerous buildings were also damaged and the American newspaper reports that more than 400,000 homes were without power in the two worst-affected states. The destruction observed in recent hours is the result of the severe weather that has hit the region in recent days.

However, the National Weather Service, the government's weather forecasting agency, has not yet confirmed the passage of a tornado, although "the National Weather Service in St. Louis indicated that damage reports and radar images suggested that it was indeed a tornado."