This is the moment rescuers frantically raced to free people trapped under the stage after a roof collapsed during a Death Metal gig in Illinois.
One person was killed in the carnage with another 28 injured, five of whom were listed in critical condition in hospitals in Belvidere, around 70 miles northwest of Chicago.
An eyewitness in the first few rows of the Apollo Theatre spoke of how she was "an inch from being killed" as she witnessed the horror moment a fellow reveller was crushed by the roof.
Iris Howard wrote that five minutes after a storm warning was pinged through the venue, "all you heard was fire alarms, wood splitting, concrete crumbnling and so many people screaming for their lives.".
She added: "I just watched the people I was having an amazing time with- die. People i was talking to - will never be speaking to their families ever again.
"[...]I am so so so lucky to be alive right now- i was an inch from being killed tonight. I did not think I was going to walk out of there alive."
In video footage of the aftermath of the Morbid Angel gig, people can be heard screaming for their lives as attendees desperately try to pull the torn timber from a pile just in front of the stage.
In another image from just outside the venue, an RV that had been transporting one of the supporting bands, Crypta, was shown with its front end completely crumpled after being battered by the raging winds.
The Belvidere Police Department said the collapse occurred as a heavy storm rolled through the area and that calls began coming from the theater at 7:48 p.m. It said that an initial assessment was that a tornado had caused the damage.
The collapse occurred at the Apollo Theatre during a heavy metal concert in the town located about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of Chicago.
Belvidere Fire Department Chief Shawn Schadle said 260 people were in the venue. He said first responders also rescued someone from an elevator and had to grapple with downed power lines outside the theater.
Belvidere Police Chief Shane Woody described the scene after the collapse as "chaos, absolute chaos."
Gabrielle Lewellyn had just entered the theater when a portion of the ceiling collapsed.
"I was there within a minute before it came down," she told WTVO-TV. "The winds, when I was walking up to the building, it went like from zero to a thousand within five seconds."
Some people rushed to lift the collapsed portion of the ceiling and pull people out of the rubble, said Lewellyn, who wasn't hurt.
"They dragged someone out from the rubble and I sat with him and I held his hand and I was (telling him) `It's going to be OK.' I didn't really know much else what to do."
There were more confirmed twisters in Iowa and wind-whipped grass fires blazed in Oklahoma, as the storm system threatened a broad swath of the country home to some 85 million people.
