At least 18 people have been killed and over 100 injured after a tornado ripped through parts of the US states of Indiana and Kentucky.
Officials said the death toll could climb as rescue workers picked through rubble in house-to-house searches and searched farm fields.
The tornado reportedly tore through a trailer park in Evansville, Indiana, killing several people. Many homes there were reduced to piles of twisted metal that lay mixed with the remains of downed trees and other debris.
The unexpected funnel cloud hit at about 2am local time, touching down in Kentucky, then skipping across the Ohio River into southern Indiana.
Alarm sirens sounded only about 10 minutes before the twister hit.
The tornado left a path of destruction about 32km long and 1.3km wide from northern Kentucky across southern Indiana.
Such a severe tornado is rare in the US Midwest in November. Peak tornado season is generally from April through June, although Ohio was hit with a similarly deadly funnel cloud in November 2002.
