Images are emerging of the destruction caused by storms and tornadoes south-eastern parts of the US, where at least 297 people have been killed in recent days.

President Barack Obama is due to visit affected communities in Alabama, where two-thirds of the fatalities took place.

The city of Tuscaloosa, in Alabama, was one of the places worst-hit, bearing the brunt of a twister thought to be a mile wide.

The US National Weather Service has reports of nearly 300 tornadoes since the storms began a week ago.

One expert from the US National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center described the storms as "the most intense super-cell thunderstorms" he and colleagues had ever seen.

Deaths and widespread devastation are also reported in Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and Virginia.

At least 14 people were killed in Georgia. The sheriff of badly-hit Catoosa County said several residential areas had "nothing but foundations left".

The overall death toll is the greatest from an outbreak of tornadoes since 1974.