At least 91 people confirmed dead, authorities say, and at least another 233 injured in local hospitals.
More than 20 children are among the dead, including the seven found drowned in Plaza Towers.
Children were told to hold on to the walls, while teachers shielding the students with their bodies.
Children were told to hold on to the walls, while teachers shielding the students with their bodies.
Hundreds of homes wiped out and more than 8,000 people left without power. The devastating tornado was larger than 1999 storm in the area that left 36 people decade
A desperate search is underway for survivors after a giant two-mile wide tornado roared through the suburbs of Oklahoma leaving 91 dead, including seven children who drowned in a pool of water at their school.
Plaza Towers Elementary was in the direct path of the giant twister and today rescuers were combing the debris to find 24 students who went missing after the building took a direct hit during 45 minutes of terror yesterday afternoon.
President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster area in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local efforts in Moore.
Another elementary school, homes and a hospital were among the buildings leveled by the 200mph winds leaving residents of the town of about 50,000 people stunned at the devastation and loss of life.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin expressed her grief on behalf of her state for the parents of the missing children, aged between five and eight, as the death toll across the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore escalated.
'Our hearts are broken for the parents that are wondering about the state of their children that had been in the schools that have been hit today,' Fallin said. 'I know that there are families wondering where their loved ones are.'
She added that rescuers were 'looking under every single piece of debris' for the missing.
A desperate search is underway for survivors after a giant two-mile wide tornado roared through the suburbs of Oklahoma leaving 91 dead, including seven children who drowned in a pool of water at their school.
Plaza Towers Elementary was in the direct path of the giant twister and today rescuers were combing the debris to find 24 students who went missing after the building took a direct hit during 45 minutes of terror yesterday afternoon.
President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster area in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local efforts in Moore.
Another elementary school, homes and a hospital were among the buildings leveled by the 200mph winds leaving residents of the town of about 50,000 people stunned at the devastation and loss of life.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin expressed her grief on behalf of her state for the parents of the missing children, aged between five and eight, as the death toll across the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore escalated.
'Our hearts are broken for the parents that are wondering about the state of their children that had been in the schools that have been hit today,' Fallin said. 'I know that there are families wondering where their loved ones are.'
She added that rescuers were 'looking under every single piece of debris' for the missing.
Rescue teams, including 80 members of the National Guard and search dogs, had reported hearing cries for help from beneath the rubble of the flattened school but the screams reportedly stopped at around 6:30 p.m. local time.
One teacher told Good Morning America that her students had to stay with her for hours until their parents could reach them. Because of the damage to the roads, 'parents walked for miles just to get to their children,' she said. 'They were out of breath and crying but just so happy to see them.'
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 Plaza Towers Elementary moments after it was pummeled by the storm that has been given a preliminary rating of at least EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale but they were kept back so search teams could hear any survivors calling for help through the rubble.
The families were later taken to a nearby church where they continued the harrowing wait for news of their children. Some, hoping their little ones had made it out alive, posted photographs of their children on Facebook and Twitter, desperately hoping they'd be reunited.
According to reports, a number of the 24 missing students were located in churches and triage centers on Monday, though it's unclear how many.
The Oklahoma medical examiner said 20 of the 91 expected to have been killed were children. The 20 youngsters include the seven Plaza Towers students as well as a three-month-old baby and a four-year-old child. Another three adults were killed at a 7-Eleven.
The office had already confirmed 51 dead and had been told by emergency services to expect 40 more bodies found in the debris, but had not yet received them.
Also among those killed, is a family of four with a baby near 4th St. and Telephone Rd. in Moore. Officials said the family tried to take shelter in a freezer.
According to KFOR, more than 233 injured residents had flooded into emergency rooms, though these numbers continue to rise.
Troopers told KOCO-5 that 101 people who were alive but trapped have now been found and rescued, but the search continues for others beneath the rubble.
After the monster tornado struck, around 80 National Guard members were deployed and first responders with dogs were drafted in to help search the debris at Plaza Towers elementary, hoping for a miracle.
Crews used jackhammers and sledgehammers to tear away concrete, and chunks were being thrown to the side as the workers dug.
National Guard choppers were being used across Moore overnight to detect body heat of survivors trapped under collapsed buildings and other rubble so they could direct rescuers.
Devastating aerial images taken immediately after the tornado show Plaza Towers - as well as hundreds of homes and businesses - completely leveled with cars thrown into the school grounds by the powerful 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.
One sixth grade boy named Brady told ABC affiliate KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City that he and other students took cover in the boys' 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.
Frightened third graders were being pulled from the wreckage alive 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 in the school of around 500 students when the tornado hit. The 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students were taken from the school to a church before the twister barreled through. 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. It is unclear whether she survived.
Injured: A nurse helps an older man that suffered a head injury, left, while another man is taken away from the IMAX theater that was used as a triage area
Governor Fallin told Oklahomans to 'stay away and let the search and rescue teams and families get in there,' referring to the pulverized school.
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.
A reporter said they asked a paramedic about the injured at Plaza Towers, and the medic 'just shook his head'.
Briarwood Elementary was also entirely flattened after staff sent an email to parents at 2.45pm to say that the school was on lockdown and they would be holding the children at the campus until the storm had passed. At 5pm local time, authorities said all the children were accounted for.
A meteorologist for KFOR branded the aftermath 'the worst tornado damage in the history of the world'.
As news of the devastating tornado spread the Queen today said she was 'deeply saddened' by the loss of life and devastation caused by the tornado in Oklahoma and sent her 'deepest sympathies' to all those whose lives have been affected.
Pope Francis tweeted his sympathies: 'I am close to the families of all who died in the Oklahoma tornado, especially those who lost young children. Join me in praying for them.'
Speaking outside Norman Regional Hospital Ninia Lay, 48, said she huddled in a closet through two storm alerts and the tornado hit on the third.
'I was hiding in the closet and I heard something like a train coming,' she said under skies still flashing with lightning. The house was flattened and Lay was buried in the rubble for two hours until her husband Kevin, 50, and rescuers dug her out.
'I thank God for my cell phone, I called me husband for help.'
Her daughter Catherine, seven, a first-grader at Plaza Towers Elementary School, took shelter with classmates and teachers in a bathroom when the tornado hit and destroyed the school. She escaped with scrapes and cuts.
Oklahoma City Police Capt. Dexter Nelson warned that downed power lines and open gas lines posed a risk in the aftermath of the system.
A KFOR reporter says that doctors told her of looting at the hospital damaged by the tornado.
In video of the storm, the dark funnel cloud could be seen marching slowly across the green landscape. As it churned through the community, the twister scattered shards of wood, pieces of insulation, awnings, shingles and glass all over the streets.
Volunteers and first responders raced to search the debris for survivors.
Chris Calvert saw the menacing tornado from about a mile away.
'I was close enough to hear it,' he said. 'It was just a low roar, and you could see the debris, like pieces of shingles and insulation and stuff like that, rotating around it.'
Even though his subdivision is a mile from the tornado's path, it was still covered with debris. He found a picture of a small girl on Santa Claus' lap in his yard.
'The whole city looks like a debris field,' Glenn Lewis, the mayor of Moore, told NBC.
'It looks like we have lost our hospital. I drove by there a while ago and it's pretty much destroyed,' Lewis said.
James Rushing, who lives across the street from Plaza Towers Elementary School heard reports of the approaching tornado and ran to the school, where his 5-year-old foster son, Aiden, attends classes. Rushing believed he would be safer there.
'About two minutes after I got there, the school started coming apart,' he said.
Douglas Sherman drove two blocks from his home to help rescue survivors.
'Just having those kids trapped in that school, that really turns the table on a lot of things,' he said.
Tiffany Thronesberry said she got an alarming call from her mother, Barbara Jarrell, after the tornado.
'I got a phone call from her screaming, "Help! Help! I can't breathe. My house is on top of me!"' Thronesberry said.
Thronesberry hurried to her mother's house, where first responders had already pulled her out. Her mother was hospitalized for treatment for cuts and bruises.
Barbara Garcia, a survivor of the massive tornado, found her dog buried alive under the rubble during her interview with CBS News.
A man with a megaphone stood near a Catholic church Monday evening and called out the names of surviving children. Parents waited nearby, hoping to hear their sons' and daughters' names.
Don Denton hadn't heard from his two sons since the tornado hit the town, but the man who has endured six back surgeries and walks with a severe limp said he walked about two miles as he searched for them.
As reports of the storm came in, Denton's 16-year-old texted him, telling him to call.
'I was trying to call him, and I couldn't get through,' Denton said.
Eventually, Denton said, his sons spotted him in the crowd. They were fine, but upset to hear that their grandparents' home was destroyed.
Jamie Shelton, the public information officer for Moore, had pleaded with residents to seek shelter before the storm dissipated. 'It's happening as we speak,' he said. 'People need to take this seriously... Take precaution, be aware. If you're outside the area, please pray for us.'
CBS has pulled tonight's season finale of 'Mike & Molly,' which included a storyline that involved a tornado.
It comes as yet more heartbreak for residents of Oklahoma, after a series of deadly tornadoes barreled through Kansas and Oklahoma this weekend, leaving a violent trail of destruction through the Midwest and South, killing two elderly men, injuring 39 people and flattening hundreds of homes.
Several terrifying twisters were spotted on Saturday evening near Rozel, a sparsely populated area in central Kansas. They were also reported to the south in parts of Oklahoma and Iowa.
A National Weather Service advisory warned: 'You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter.'
'Complete destruction of neighborhoods, businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying debris will be deadly to people and animals.'
At least four separate tornadoes touched down in central Oklahoma on Sunday afternoon, including one near the town of Shawnee, 35 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, that laid waste to much of a trailer park.
Two men, 79-year-old Glen Irish and 76-year-old Billy Hutchinson, were found dead after the tornado wrought its devastation on Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Irish's body was found out in the open after the storm passed through, while Hutchinson was taken to Norman Regional Hospital, but later pronounced dead, according to the medical examiner.
'You can see where there's absolutely nothing, then there are places where you have mobile home frames on top of each other, debris piled up,' Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth said after surviving damage in the Steelman Estates Mobile Home Park.
'It looks like there's been heavy equipment in there on a demolition tour. It's pretty bad. It's pretty much wiped out,' he said.
Across the state, 21 people were injured, not including those who suffered bumps and bruises and chose not to visit a hospital, said Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.
Booth said six at Steelman Estates were hurt.
On Interstate 40, tractor-trailers were blown off the road, and one was seen hanging over the highway's overpass.
Dozens of homes were damaged by the other tornadoes that touched down in Oklahoma, but emergency officials had no immediate reports of injuries caused by any of them, including the first of the afternoon that hit Edmond, a suburb north of Oklahoma City, before making its way toward Tulsa, 90 miles to the northeast.
'I knew it was coming,' said Randy Grau, who huddled with his wife and two young sons in their Edmond home's safe room when the tornado hit.
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