[Omah]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22604251 (with video)

A gigantic tornado has ripped through a suburb of Oklahoma City, destroying a school, sparking fires and flattening homes across whole neighbourhoods.

The "mile-wide" storm came on the second day in a row that twisters hit the Midwestern state of Oklahoma.

Rescuers are searching for survivors as scores of primary school children are believed to be trapped under debris.

On Sunday, at least two people died and 21 more were injured by the tornadoes that also razed a mobile home park.

The twister struck about 15:00 local time (21:00 BST) on Monday in the area of Moore, Oklahoma, a suburb of about 55,000 people just south of Oklahoma City, and remained on the ground for about 45 minutes.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said Monday's tornado generated winds of up to 200mph (321km/h).

Utter devastation .....

[Mrluvaluva]

Just watching the news it sounds quite bad.

[GypsyGoth]

it looks like hundreds of homes are just gone.

[Josy]

Sounds bad

[Omah]

At least 51 people have been killed after a huge tornado tore though the Oklahoma City suburbs, with the death toll likely to rise, the Oklahoma chief medical examiner's office has said.

About 120 people, including 70 children, are being treated for injuries in hospitals around Moore.

The tornado sparked fires, flattened houses, and destroyed schools on Monday afternoon.

Search and rescue efforts will continue throughout the night, officials said.

It's REALLY bad .....

[Josy]

I was just watching this on the news there, they are expecting more tornados too.

Makes you think about how lucky we are weather wise tbh, we moan about a bit of rain or that it's too hot when it's sunny when really we are lucky as hell not to have to put up with stuff like tornados, hurricanes etc.

[Josiah.]

It has been confirmed that the tornado was an EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

[Shaun]

two miles wide... jesus

[Ammi]

..up to 91 killed, more than 20 children..

One of the strongest tornadoes ever recorded has ripped through a suburb of Oklahoma City, killing up to 91 people and destroying everything in its path.

The ferocious tornado flattened entire neighbourhoods in the southern suburb of Moore with winds of up to 200mph, rendering thousands of people homeless, leaving buildings on fire and landing a direct blow to a school.

Several children were pulled alive from the wreckage of Plaza Towers Elementary School after the devastating, mile-wide tornado reduced the building to heaps of rubble and twisted metal

Rescuers passed the children down a "human chain" to get them to medical personnel for treatment.

Roughly 500 students attend the school. It is unclear whether any had been evacuated before the twister hit, but local media reported some children were taken to a nearby church.

Firefighters were at the scene digging through the school's debris to reach any children possibly trapped inside.

A second elementary school, Briarwood, was also hit but did not appear to have sustained casualties. Moore's hospital was also badly damaged

Emergency crews pledged to work through the night across the city to look for survivors, amid reports that another, smaller, storm was on its way to the town of 55,000 people.

The Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the 51 deaths, and said at least 20 children were among the fatalities.

Officials at two hospitals said they were treating more than 140 patients, including around 70 children. Dozens of people were said to be in a critical condition.

President Barack Obama spoke to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin on the phone and promised the state all the help it needs as he declared the devastating tornado a major disaster

Ms Fallin told a news conference "hearts are broken" for the parents looking for their children.

"This is a very sad day for the state of Oklahoma - a very hard day and very tragic day," she said.

"Our prayers and our thoughts are with all the Oklahoma families that have been hit hard by this terrible storm.

"We are doing every single thing that we can to assist those that are in need right now."

She said communication was hard with power lines and mobile phone towers hit by the storm

The governor said she had deployed 80 Oklahoma National Guard members to help with the recovery effort and assist search and rescue teams who she said were "looking under every single piece of debris" to find anyone that might be injured or lost.

She had already declared a state of emergency for 16 Oklahoma counties due to the tornado threat on Sunday, and added five more on Monday after the storms hit the state capital.

One mother described how she and her children took refuge in their bath as the tornado tore their house apart.

"My husband told us to get in the bathtub immediately and put on a mattress," she said.

She said she had to hold her daughter's hair to stop her slipping away when the tornado struck

Another family locked themselves inside their cellar - only to have its door ripped open by the twister.

Ricky Stover said: "We thought we'd die. We saw the latch coming undone and we couldn't reach for it ... glass and debris started slamming on us."

Eric Olsen, a radio journalist, said parts of Moore resembled a war zone.

He told Sky News: "The devastation here is absolutely mind-blowing. It looks like a bomb has absolutely levelled it. It looks like something you would see in maybe Afghanistan or Iraq."

The National Weather Service gave the twister a preliminary EF-4 classification - on a five-point scale - with winds up to 200mph

Weather service meteorologist Kelsey Angle said fewer than 1% of all tornadoes ever reach EF-4 or EF-5 levels.

Several other tornado warnings were also in effect following the devastating twister.

It came just a day after two people were confirmed killed by a tornado nearby.

Residents of Moore had been urged to take shelter as the violent storm moved through the area.

The broad, dark funnel cloud was on the ground for 35 minutes before dissipating

KFOR-TV's news helicopter showed huge swathes of buildings and homes completely levelled, with nothing but wreckage left.

Some homes were taken down to their concrete slabs.

Sky News US Correspondent Dominic Waghorn described the damage, saying "whole neighbourhoods just wiped off the map, homes literally stripped to their foundations".

Aerial footage showed vehicles crumpled and overturned in piles of debris on the motorway, and buildings that had become unrecognisable jumbles of rubble.

Utility workers rushed to shut off electricity and gas to the area to prevent further danger from live power lines or natural gas leaks

Footage of the storm showed the monster twister slowly moving through the area and the flashes of power lines blowing.

In Tulsa - 100 miles away - residents reported the debris from the Moore tornado raining down on their neighbourhoods.

The huge tornado was the most recent in a series of twisters that has ravaged towns in the midwest US in recent days as part of a line of violent storms that have stretched from the Canadian border down into Texas.

This part of the country is known as "tornado alley" and residents are trained in how to take shelter.

Most towns and cities are equipped with storm sirens that can warn of a coming tornado half an hour before it hits.

The same suburb was hit hard by a tornado in 1999. That storm had the distinction of producing the highest winds ever recorded near the Earth's surface of up to 302mph.

Country music star Toby Keith, who grew up in the town, said it would persevere.

"Hometown got hit for the gazillionth time. Rise again Moore Oklahoma," he tweeted

[Cherie]

Just awful.

[Marc]

Up to 91 people dead this is so bad! Looks devastating

[Marc]

Oh my sweet Jesus I just watched a woman being interviewed by her wreckage of her house and she was speaking about her dog and how it's probably in the wreckage and y'know...

And then he pokes his head out of the wreckage and he's okay it's so lovely. I'll post a video as soon as I find it on YouTube

Edit: http://m.cbsnews.com/postwatch.rbml?...cbsID=50147264

[Lee.]

God, this is horrible... Can see the number of deaths being way higher than 91.

[Marc]

Originally Posted by Lee.

God, this is horrible... Can see the number of deaths being way higher than 91.

Definitely, it'll go up steadily as the wreckage is uncovered

[Kazanne]

i'm glad our weather is so boring,imagine if we had to put up with this sort of thing,those poor people ,one woman survived by hiding in a bath tub with her kids !!! horrendous,and a vast loss of life.

[Wildcat!]

Everyone knows, that I love my American brothers and sisters, but this has been tiking me off since the Boston Marathon bombing. Why is it, that every time there is a tragedy in the US, you Brits act like its the end of the world. The Boston event had 3 deaths, because of 2 crazy muslim fanatics. It seemed like Armageddon, with the news and all. To this day, its still in the news.

Yet, just Sat, Apr 20, 2013 "Earthquake kills 157, injures 5,700 in China's Sichuan." Heard about it for a minute, then forgotten.

Fri, May 10, 2013 "Bangladesh workers find survivor in factory rubble. where the death toll shot past 1,000". Heard about it for a minute, then forgotten. I read comments on blogs, like "good riddance, less muslims". Some disgustng stuff.

I am sorry, but Maybe next time, these world tragedies, will get a bit of attention.
Maybe next time, it wont be like the end of the world, when 3 people die in a tragedy! And maybe one billion people wont be vilified, for the actions of 2 crazy brothers.

Just maybe these kinds of tragedies, can bring some perspective, about insignificant random events like in Boston. The lord does work in mysterious ways.


That being said, my heart goes out to the victims families, and everyone affected by the devastation, sincerely.

[Marc]

I'm just saddened by it Wildcat. No number of deaths makes a story more upsetting than another IMO. Death is death and it's sad

[Lee.]

Originally Posted by Wildcat!

Everyone knows, that I love my American brothers and sisters, but this has been tiking me off since the Boston Marathon. Why is it, that everytime there is a tragedy in the US, you brits act like its the end of the world. The Boston event had 3 deaths, because of 2 crazy muslim fanatics. It seemed like Armageddon, with the news and all. To this day, its still in the news.

Yet, just Sat, Apr 20, 2013 "Earthquake kills 157, injures 5,700 in China's Sichuan." Heard about it for a minute, then forgotten.

Fri, May 10, 2013 "Bangladesh workers find survivor in factory rubble. where the death toll shot past 1,000". Heard about it for a minute, then forgotten.

I am sorry, but Maybe next time, these world tragedies, will get a bit of attention.
Maybe next time, it wont be like the end of the world, when 3 people die in a tragedy! And maybe one billion people wont be vilified, for the actions of 2 crazy brothers.

Just maybe these kinds of tragedies, can bring some perspective, about insignificant random events like in Boston. The lord does work in mysterious ways.


That being said, my heart goes out to the victims families, and everyone affected by the devastation, sincerely.

I actually agree with you Wildcat.. I was just saying this the other day.

[Wildcat!]

Well did you post, or even know about those death I listed above Mark.

[MTVN]

The Bangladesh building collapse was headline news here, & was talked about in Parliament and several different news shows like Question Time etc. it didn't go ignored

I think the fact is that, even though we're separated by thousands of miles, because of the strong cultural and historical ties between the UK and the US these things do feel 'closer to home' when they happen. The Boston thing obviously got a lot of coverage because it's so rare in the West, we generally feel protected from such acts yet the idea that just going to watch the marathon in your home city can lead to your death hits home for a lot of people, it was kind of a 'that could happen to me' sort of feeling. Obviously such acts happen a lot more in other countries, like just yesterday more than 70 were killed in an Iraq bomb and it's the sort of thing they'll have to face every day, but, rightly or wrongly, we probably do have a tendency to feel quite detached from such events

[Lee.]

11 people died in Mauritius last month due to a horrific flash flood. Google it, it's unbelievable!
I didn't see any news coverage of it at all.
Btw, this doesn't make me care any less for what's going on on Oklahoma right now.. I can't believe what's happened to those poor people. How do you even start rebuilding your life after something like that??

[Wildcat!]

Fair point MTVN. But you can see how its hard fr me to shed a tear, as much as I'd like to. And a lot of my friends and family are american btw! My cousin even lives in Oklahoma City!

[Wildcat!]

Originally Posted by Lee.

11 people died in Mauritius last month due to a horrific flash flood. Google it, it's unbelievable!
I didn't see any news coverage of it at all.
Btw, this doesn't make me care any less for what's going on on Oklahoma right now.. I can't believe what's happened to those poor people. How do you even start rebuilding your life after something like that??

Exactly my point. And yeah, its devastating, but you know what, when we bomb other nations this is what we leave behind. or worse. But the only thing thats covered, is which 2 or 3 terrorists, they killed or captured!

[Marc]

Originally Posted by Wildcat!

Well did you post, or even know about those death I listed above Mark.

No because it wasn't in our News.

Alas I don't think that because they're not in the news it's not important or equally as saddening.

[Nedusa]

Absolute utter devastation .....!!!!