Rescuers have uncovered the bodies of seven children believed to have drowned in a pool of water under the flattened Plaza Towers Elementary School and up to 30 more students are feared dead after a two mile-wide tornado touched down in a highly-populated suburb of Oklahoma City on Monday.
Search teams on site had reported hearing cries for help from beneath the rubble at the elementary school that was obliterated in the worst storm the area of Moore has ever seen but these screams reportedly stopped at around 6:30 p.m. and shortly after it was reported that the search and rescue mission had become a recovery mission with scores of little ones feared buried under the rubble.
The monstrous tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs obliterating entire neighborhoods with winds up to 200 mph pulverizing a 30-square-mile stretch. Block after block lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside.
Frantic parents rushed to the school, which was directly hit when the massive storm that has been given a preliminary rating of EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale barreled through the area of 170,000 residents shortly after 3pm Monday. The families were later taken to a nearby church to await news of their children.
KWTVreports that at least 51 people in the area of Moore, Oklahoma, have now been confirmed dead by the Medical Examiner's Office, of which at more than 20 are children. Among the dead are a three-month-old baby, a four-year-old child and three adults who were killed at a 7-Eleven. Local hospitals said that more than 120 injured residents had flooded into emergency rooms, including more than 70 children - but these numbers are expected to rise.
Around 80 National Guard member were deployed and first responders with dogs were drafted in to help search the debris at Plaza Towers elementary before nightfall made the recovery effort more difficult.
Devastating aerial images taken immediately afterwards show the school - as well as hundreds of homes and businesses - completely leveled with cars that have been thrown into the school grounds by the storm. Students who were inside the building described clinging to the walls of the hallway where many of them huddled during the storm as the twister battered the school. Others cowered in closets or bathrooms to protect themselves.
A monstrous tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs, flattening entire neighborhoods with winds up to 200 mph, setting buildings on fire and landing a direct blow on an elementary school
One sixth grade boy named Brady told ABC affiliate KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City that he and other students took cover in a bathroom.
'Cinderblocks and everything collapsed on them but they were underneath so that kind of saved them a little bit, but I mean they were trapped in there,' he said.
Third graders were being pulled from the wreckage alive at Plaza Towers this afternoon as rescue workers passed the children down a human chain before taking them to a triage center set up in the school's parking lot.
Staff said there had been at least 75 people taking shelter in the hallway of the building when the tornado hit. One teacher said she had laid on six children to protect them. It is believed another teacher put her life at risk to cover three students and suffered serious injuries. The 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students were taken from the school to a church before the twister barreled through.
President Barack Obama called to offer any kind of assistance to the devastated areas, Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin said, adding that three search and rescue teams with dogs from out of state were coming to help. She told Oklahomans to 'stay away and let the our search and rescue teams and families get in there'.
Many land lines to stricken areas were down and cellphone traffic was congested. Poor cell phone reception was making it difficult for frantic families to connect with each other but a website Safeandwell.com has been set up to assist people who fear for their loved ones.
Scenes of devastation: Debris fills land where homes once stood after a massive tornado barreled through Moore, Oklahoma on Monday
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