A dangerous weekend weather system has killed at least 18 people in the southern United States.
Officials in Georgia reported more than a dozen deaths after severe thunderstorms and tornadoes hit several states.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal declared an emergency for seven counties in the south-central part of the state.
"I urge all Georgians to exercise caution and vigilance in order to remain safe and prevent further loss of life or injuries," Mr Deal said in a news release.
Buildings collapsed, homes were destroyed, tress toppled and fields littered with debris.
Seven deaths occurred in Cook County, Georgia, state emergency managers said in a statement, with local reports that a mobile home park was particularly hard hit.
Officials earlier reported eight deaths in the county.
A church, located in the county seat near the Florida-Georgia state line, was sheltering more than 50 people.
The storms in Georgia, which killed a total of 14 people, followed a pre-dawn tornado in Mississippi on Saturday that killed four people.
Severe weather also injured more than 50 others and damaged about 480 homes in Mississippi, state officials said yesterday.
In Georgia, most of the storms had moved on by last night, with a few still threatening coastal areas, a spokesman for the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency said.
At least 18 people killed in powerful storms in the US pic.twitter.com/AJsO6LGVgW
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) January 23, 2017
The system prompted US weather forecasters to issue a rare, "high risk" warning of severe storms threatening parts of southern Georgia, north and central Florida and Alabama yesterday, the first such warning since 2014.
South Carolina could also see severe weather.
"These could be the kind of tornadoes you don't want to mess with," said Rich Thompson, lead forecaster at the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
The system toppled trees and power lines in Georgia, northern Florida and Alabama, the agency's website reported.
Hail was sighted in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.
On the west coast, heavy rains from a separate system drenched parts of southern California.
