The small town of Perryton, Texas, is one of many southern US communities hit hard by severe weather. Three people were killed and dozens more injured.

The smell of natural gas surrounded residents as they used their hands to dig through the debris, looking for loved ones and salvaging what they could from the destruction.

The tornado took a direct shot to the town, leaving 3 people dead and dozens injured, according to the Booker Fire Department, one of the first crews on scene. Two people are still missing as of Thursday evening.

Small wounds, cuts, lacerations and a few major head injuries were among the injuries of the 115 patients treated at Ochiltree General Hospital, according to Amie Marrufo, the hospital’s spokeswoman.

“We’ve been very, very thankful for our local counties and hospitals for coming to our aid,” she said. “We’ve been blessed for a lot of good help. Luckily, this small town comes together when we need to.”

Governor Greg Abbott also directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) to deploy state emergency response resources to meet the town’s “urgent life-safety needs.”

At least two people have been killed and 22 injured after Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall in western India near the Pakistan border.

The storm weakened after hitting the Gujarat state coast on Thursday night, but is still moving across the state bringing strong winds and rains.

It has uprooted trees, ripped out electricity poles, and damaged roads in some districts.

The full extent of the damage is still yet known, say authorities.

Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said the country was largely spared the full force of the cyclone.

Coastal areas of the Sindh province were inundated because of high sea levels “but most people had been evacuated to safe ground,” she said.

In India, the Press Trust of India reported two cattle farmers in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar city- a father and son – were swept away as they entered a flooded ravine to save their goats.

Not a single life was lost after the cyclone’s landfall on Thursday night, the country’s national disaster management agency chief said.

More than 170,000 people in the two countries had been evacuated from the coastal regions before the arrival of the cyclone.

Makeshift shelters were also set up in school auditoriums and other government buildings in both countries.

Cyclone Biparjoy, which means “disaster” in Bengali, first hit India’s port city of Jakhau in Gujarat on Thursday packing winds up to 125 km/h (78mph).

The India Meteorological Department has since reduced the classification of the storm from “very severe” to “severe”.

Authorities had, however, been unable to start rescue operations due to heavy rains and strong winds in Gujarat’s Mandvi district, the district chief told the BBC.

India’s weather office said heavy rainfall is expected to continue in the neighbouring Rajasthan state till Saturday as the cyclone moves northwest.

Gujarat officials said around 99 train services would remain cancelled as the storm barrels across the state.

Cyclone Biparjoy was classified as a category one storm, the least severe on a scale of one to five, but forecasters had said it could be the area’s worst storm in 25 years.

Cyclones, also known as hurricanes in the North Atlantic and typhoons in the north-west Pacific, are a regular and deadly phenomenon in the Indian Ocean. Rising surface temperatures across the Arabian Sea in recent years due to climate change have made the surrounding regions even more vulnerable to devastating storms.

At least 33 deaths were reported in Pakistan last week due to heavy rains, while seven deaths were reported in India this week amid downpours.

Henderson Island is an uninhabited island and coral atoll which is very important with its flora and fauna, located in the south Pacific Ocean, and part of the British Overseas territory of the Pitcairn Islands.

As it is a remote and uninhabited elevated coral atoll, it is the largest of the four islands of the Pitcairn Island group of which only Pitcairn is inhabited. This raised coral atoll is made out of coral limestone and sits atop a conical, most likely volcanic mound, rising from a depth of about 3,500 meters (11,500 feet).

Its surface is mostly reef-rubble and dissected limestone, which is an extremely rugged mixture of steep, jagged pinnacles and shallow sink holes, and overall the whole island is encircled by steep, undercut limestone cliffs on all but the north end.

Together with the Aldabra Island in the Indian Ocean, Henderson Island is untouched, pure nature which has not been altered by human activities, making its flora really dense with tangled scrub forest and 51 native species of flowering plants, ten of which are unique to the island.

There are also coconut palms, Pandanus tectorius, Thespesia populnea, Tournefortia argentea, Cordia subcordata, Guettarda speciosa, Pisonia grandis etc.

There are as well four endemic land bird species which are: the Henderson fruit dove, Henderson lorikeet, Henderson reed warbler and the flightless Henderson crake.

There were three species of birds that now are extinct when the Polynesians came to the island and also the invasive rats were posing big treat as it was the case on the Ducie Island.

The Pacific Rat actually was introduced by the Polynesians which was a bad call from them, but still there are a green sea turle, a skink and still unidentified gecko that can be found on the island.

The bird population at the moment is not at risk, even though there is always a risk of diseases, introduction of predators to the island and bringing “an alien” by unauthorized landings of yachts.

Since 1988, the Henderson Island has been put under protection by UNESCO, which makes it a proof of how important the island is for the region the whole world.