PIEDMONT, Ala. -- Sixteen people in a church crowded for Palm Sunday were killed when a tornado reduced it to rubble.
Two churchgoers died later in hospitals or en route.
Another 18 died and hundreds were injured by twisters that hit Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina. A total of at least 36 have died in violent weather Sunday in the Southeast.
Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Ala., was hardest hit. Among the dead: six children, ages 2 to 12, who were lined up while performing their Easter play when a wall collapsed on them.
At least 90 people were injured; a 17th body was found outside the church in a van crushed by a fallen phone pole.
Elwanna Acker, 63, who was among 140 worshipers in the church, said she heard the roar of the tornado, "then the windows started shattering. One man ran down the aisle yelling, 'Get on the floor!' Then the roof came down. The woman right next to me died."
B.J. Ogg, 36, who lives next door, saw the twister coming from the east and rushed to help. "There were a lot of people killed and hurt in there that I knew very well," she said, tears streaming down her face.
The tornado moved on and heavily damaged Union Grove Methodist Church six miles away. About 75 people were able to get in the basement and nobody was hurt, Piedmont Mayor Vera Stewart said.
At least three were killed in east Alabama and the National Guard was activated.
More tornadoes are possible today in northern Florida, southeastern Georgia and the eastern Carolinas, said Jim Henderson of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center.
Elsewhere Sunday:
-- In north Georgia, at least 14 people died. Among the dead were two in Bartow County who "lived in a mobile home that was completely blown away," said Gary McConnell of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
Seven were killed in a mobile home park in Pickens County.
Sunday's twisters were the USA's worst tornado outbreak since Nov. 21-23, 1992, when 94 tornadoes hit 13 states, killing 26 and injuring 641.
