video transcript

At least 51 people are confirmed dead including 20 children after a major tornado tore through Oklahoma on Monday afternoon, and that number is expected to rise. Search and rescue crews are working through the night in Moore - a suburb of Oklahoma City - to remove debris from an elementary school where about two dozen more are feared dead beneath the rubble. The twister hit around 3 pm local time, and measured about two miles in diameter with winds churning at about 200 miles an hour. Entire neighbourhoods were flattened in minutes and reduced to timber. One resident who took shelter in a cellar, gave a chilling account of when the tornado hit. (SOUNDBITE) (English) TORNADO SURVIVOR RICKY STOVER SAYING: "We thought we died because we were inside the cellar door, we locked the cellar door once we saw it coming, it got louder and next thing you know is you see the latching coming undone and we couldn't reach for it and it ripped open the door and just glass and debris started slamming on us and we thought we were dead to be honest." The last such tornado to hit the region was in 1999 when more than 40 people were killed and thousands of homes were destroyed.