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San Francisco: Men stand in front of the toppled canopy of a gas station that has been torn down by the wind
Photo:
Godofredo A. Vasquez / dpa
A violent storm is currently sweeping across the most populous US state of California.
Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency.
This makes it possible to react more quickly to developments, he tweeted.
A flood warning was in place for more than 34 million people in California on Thursday.
The US weather service NWS asked residents of the Bay Area around San Francisco and Sacramento to refrain from non-essential car trips.
The NWS expects "excessive rain," flash floods, landslides and high winds.
Almost 200,000 households without electricity
A child died in the storm on Wednesday after being killed by a falling tree.
The child, around two years old, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident in Sonoma County, west of the capital Sacramento, the Press Democrat newspaper reported on Wednesday evening.
There had already been a violent storm in California at the weekend, there were floods and several people died.
Evacuation orders were in place in several cities, wrote the Los Angeles Times.
According to the website "PowerOutage", almost 200,000 households were without electricity on Thursday night.
In southern California, in the region around the coastal city of Santa Barbara, the authorities warned of floods and mud and boulder avalanches.
The town of Montecito, where Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan, presenter Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities live, is also affected.
According to the weather service, the reason for the extreme weather is - as was the case on the New Year's weekend - a so-called atmospheric flow, a damp and narrow weather band that can stretch over hundreds of kilometers.
According to the Los Angeles Times, this is the third such weather event in two weeks.
At the beginning of the year, at least two people died in severe storms in central California.
has/AFP/dpa