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Coronavirus pandemic
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Tornadoes tear through southern US, killing at least 30 and adding to pandemic woes

  • Social distancing rules suspended as people huddle together to take shelter from storms
  • More than 1 million homes and businesses left without power amid floods and mudslides

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Elaine Powell speaks with relatives on her mobile phone as she surveys the remains of her boyfriend's property in Carson, Mississippi, on Monday. Photo: AP
Associated Press
Storms killed more than 30 people in the Southeast, piling fresh misery atop a pandemic, before spreading across the eastern United States on Monday, leaving more than 1 million homes and businesses without power amid floods and mudslides.
In Alabama, people seeking shelter from tornadoes huddled in community shelters, protective masks covering their faces to guard against the new coronavirus. A twister demolished a Mississippi home save for a concrete room where a married couple and their children survived unharmed, but 11 others died in the state.

About 137km (85 miles) from Atlanta in the mountains of north Georgia, Emma and Charles “Peewee” Pritchett lay still in their bed praying as a suspected twister splintered the rest of their home.

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“I said, ‘If we’re gonna die I’m going to be beside him,’” the woman said on Monday. Both survived without injuries.

A man salvages a heart-shaped sign with the names of his grandchildren from the rubble of his trailer in Chatsworth, Georgia, on Monday. Photo: dpa
A man salvages a heart-shaped sign with the names of his grandchildren from the rubble of his trailer in Chatsworth, Georgia, on Monday. Photo: dpa
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Nine people died in South Carolina, Governor Henry McMaster said, and coroners said eight were killed in Georgia. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said two people were killed in Chattanooga, and others died under falling trees or inside collapsed buildings in Arkansas and North Carolina.

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