Tornadoes rip through southern US states – in pictures

A tornado flattened most of this home in the LaGrange subdivision in Fayetteville, North Carolina Photograph: James Robinson/AP

A car is swallowed up by a hole left by the tree, uprooted as a tornado passed just south of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina Photograph: Stan Gilliland/EPA

An aerial photo shows some of the approximately 30 houses severely damaged or destroyed by a tornado in the St Andrews neighbourhood just south of Sanford, North Carolina Photograph: Thomas Babb/AP

Deborah Dulow cleans up her father's house in Askewville, North Carolina Photograph: Jim R. Bounds/AP

Governor Robert Bentley looks at family photos with Henley Hollon, whose brother, niece and nephew were all killed when their homes were twisted from their foundations by the tornado in Boone's Chapel, Alabama Photograph: Amanda Sowards/AP

A home lies wrecked in the wake of a tornado that ripped through Gloucester, Virginia Photograph: Randall Greenwell/AP

Mary Grady sits in her neighbour's yard in Askewville, North Carolina, where she weathered the tornado Photograph: Jim R. Bounds/AP

Steve Sawyer sorts through debris at a home which was destroyed by the tornado that swept through Gloucester, Virginia, on Saturday night Photograph: Steve Helber/AP

Annina Purdy, who was inside the Lowe's hardware store in Sanford, North Carolina, when a tornado destroyed the building, returns to the car park to retrieve her belongings Photograph: Ted Richardson/AP

An aerial photo shows tornado damage at the Lowe's hardware store in Sanford, North Carolina Photograph: Thomas Babb/AP

Jenn Zezza, centre, joins volunteers to help sort through what was the office of a home on Serendipity Drive, in the McKinley Mill subdivision in Raleigh, North Carolina, after it was flattened by the tornado Photograph: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

Nathaniel Ramey, left, comforts Megan Hurst at her grandmother's house in Askewville, North Carolina Photograph: Jim R. Bounds/AP

People walk through a devastated landscape after a tornado ripped through the Cottonade neighbourhood near Fort Bragg, North Carolina Photograph: Andrew Craft/AP