Tornadoes tore through south-western Georgia yesterday, killing at least 22 people and reducing one town to a "war zone" as the wind razed mobile homes, pine forests and pecan orchards, officials and witnesses said.
More than 100 people were injured when the twisters struck just after midnight, severely damaging brick buildings and knocking down power lines in Colquitt, Tift, Mitchell and Grady counties near the towns of Moultrie and Camilla, about 320 km south of Atlanta.
Parts of Camilla were flattened as the twisters roared through the dark about 40 minutes apart, striking the outskirts of the town when most of Camilla's 5,500 residents were asleep. Power cuts hampered initial efforts to help the injured.
"We've had whole neighbourhoods destroyed. Our people are dead. There are a lot of injuries and the roads are impassable," said Stali Allen, a reporter with the Camilla Enterprise, a local newspaper.
The National Weather Service said the main tornado to hit Camilla had winds of 155 m.p.h.
"We need everybody's prayers," Camilla mayor Mr Jay Powell told CNN. "We will need help to rebuild too," he said, describing the devastation in his town as like a "war zone."
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency said at least 22 people were killed including 14 in Mitchell County, seven in Grady County and one in Colquitt County. The Governor of Georgia, Mr Roy Barnes, declared a state of emergency in all four affected counties in the state.
"It's like this thing just cut a swath across a huge area," Mr Barnes said after flying over the worst hit areas in a helicopter. "Within it there was total devastation." He said he had asked for federal help.
After working through the night treating victims, Dr Mark Hudson flew over damaged areas of Grady County, seeing pine forests and pecan orchards flattened by the twisters.
"We flew over 60-year-old pine trees. It was as if someone had pulled them from the ground and laid them down," he said.
Just south of Camilla, Cindy Anglin, her husband Chris and four children pulled photographs and other possessions from their home, which was virtually cut in half by the twister.
Ms Anglin said she and her two sons were at one end of the house and the storm trapped her husband at the other end when he went to find the two girls. The family reunited when the twister passed.
"Had my husband gotten any further with the girls, they wouldn't have made it," she said. "We saw a miracle."