The grim work of search, rescue and recovery spun into a second day Tuesday in central Oklahoma after a massive and murderous tornado blasted through the area, killing at least 51 people, flattening neighborhoods and destroying two elementary schools.
Amy Elliott of the state medical examiner’s office said the death toll could increase by as many as 40 as rescue workers pick through miles of rubble left behind by Monday’s storm.
More than 120 people were being treated at hospitals, including about 50 children, after the ferocious storm ripped through the suburb of Moore, which was flattened by another killer tornado that tracked the same path 14 years ago.
President Obama, who declared a major disaster in Oklahoma late Monday, was scheduled to address the nation at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Several children were pulled alive from the rubble of Plaza Towers Elementary, but some of their classmates were killed. About a mile away, the walls tumbled down at Briarwood Elementary. Miraculously, no one there died.
On Sunday, a tornado packing winds as high as 200 mph, left two people dead in Oklahoma. Tornadoes and high winds injured more than 20 in the region.
So far this year – not including this most recent five-day outbreak – severe storms have caused $3.5 billion in economic losses in the USA, said meteorologist Steve Bowen of global reinsurance firm Aon Benfield. Bowen says. Of that $3.5 billion, at least $2 billion was covered by insurance.
The threat of twisters comes less than a week after tornadoes left six dead, dozens injured and hundreds of homes destroyed in Texas and just shy of the two-year anniversary of the Joplin, Mo., twister.
Information from The Associated Press and USA Today contributed to this report.