Two dead in Alabama as tornadoes fueled by record heat hit US south

More than 50,000 customers in Mississippi and Alabama left without electricity as search and rescue teams go door to door

Tornadoes damaged homes, destroyed a fire station, briefly trapped people in a grocery store and ripped the roof off an apartment complex in Mississippi while two people died as a tree hit their mobile home in Alabama, authorities said on Wednesday.

The National Weather Service (NWS) had warned that strong twisters capable of carving up communities over long distances were possible as the storm front moved east from Texas. They were fueled by record high temperatures and threatened a stretch of the US where more than 25 million people live.