Monster tornado tears through southern Oklahoma City Metro Area

Updated at 11:30 a.m. EDT, May 21.
A monster tornado cut a mile-wide swath of destruction through the southern Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday afternoon, leveling entire neighbourhoods along its path. At least 24 deaths have been reported, including several children, and there have been an untold number of injuries.

According to eyewitnesses, the tornado formed very quickly, touching down southwest of Oklahoma City at 2:56 p.m. Central Time, and cutting a roughly 30-km path across to the east, straight through the middle of Moore, in the southern part of the Oklahoma City Metro Area.

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The massive twister destroyed everything in its path, taking out entire neighborhoods and flattening two schools — Briarwood Elementary and Plaza Tower Elementary. According to reports, the Oklahoma City medical examiner has confirmed 24 fatalities so far, including seven children, reducing the total reported from 51 as of last night. It is thought that the count was higher due to some of the victims being counted more than once in the confusion, however the total number is far from final and is expected to go up again as rescue workers search through the remains of homes for survivors.

Although apparently all children at Briarwood Elementary have been accounted for (with some injuries), KFOR-TV in Oklahoma had reported that up to 75 people (children and staff) were trapped in the collapse of Plaza Tower Elementary school. First-responders were on the scene, and had pulled some survivors from the rubble, but fears rose that somewhere between 20 to 30 others may have been killed. It has now been confirmed that seven children that were trapped in the school's basement drowned, apparently due to a burst water pipe.

According to Dr. Greg Forbes, with The Weather Channel, the extent of the damage suggests that it could rank as high as an EF5 tornado (with wind speeds in excess of 322 km/h). He estimates the size of the tornado as at least a mile wide, and previous estimates put the the 'debris cloud' — the area around the twister that is filled with debris spinning around the tornado itself — at roughly two miles wide.

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This isn't the first time the people of Moore have had to deal with this kind of disaster. Back on May 3, 1999, an F5 tornado tore through the town, damaging or destroying over 8,000 homes and killing 36 people. It was considered the most costly tornado disaster on record until an EF5 tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011. Another tornado, an F4, swept through Moore on May 7, 2003, causing extensive damage and many injuries, but fortunately no one was killed.

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