Severe weather hits U.S. Midwest, South, leaving 2 dead

CHICAGO, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Severe weather swept U.S. Midwest and South on Sunday afternoon, leaving at least 2 people dead, U.S. media reported Monday.

A home in Lost River Township in the central part of the U.S. state of Indiana was hit by a suspected tornado. A couple was in the home at the time. The husband was pronounced dead at the scene while the wife was airlifted to a local hospital to be treated for injuries, said Monty Wolf with the Martin County Emergency Management.

Flattened buildings were seen in Greenwood, Indiana, with debris lofted into the air as the tornado ripped through Johnson County. Hail of tennis ball size was reported throughout parts of Indiana and Arkansas, local media reported.

In the U.S. state of Georgia, a falling tree crushed a 55-year-old man in the northeast part of Atlanta. In addition, emergency management officials in Cherokee County said two people received minor injuries after a tree fell on a car.

Thunderstorms on Sunday contributed to power outages for 702,304 American utility customers in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, according to electricity tracker PowerOutage.us.

More than 550,000 utility customers across the nine states were still impacted by outages as of early Monday morning, the online tracker said.

Multiple tornadoes were reported Sunday afternoon in central Indiana, the National Weather Service said. A combination of high temperatures, high humidity and strong wind helped form the tornado.