Renee Hoffman, the press secretary of North Carolina Governor Mike Easley, confirmed that the death toll from Thursday's tornado in Riegelwood had increased from seven to eight.
"That is correct," she said when asked about reports that eight people had died.
"The governor will conduct an aerial tour and meet with the local officials," she told AFP.
The deaths took place in an area of the southern US state that included a cluster of mobile homes and a neighbourhood of brick homes, Hoffman said.
"It happened at about 6:45 (1145 GMT) Thursday morning," she said. "It was basically a neighbourhood."
Easley had said Thursday that seven people had died from the tornado and 20 others were taken to hospitals.
Local television showed footage of homes smashed to pieces, uprooted trees and downed power lines.
Easley said dozens of mobile homes had been destroyed and that at one stage 100,000 people had lost power.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006