Upi 44 News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Breaking news -- the deadly toll in oklahoma as mother nature's wrecking ball tears a path across a wide area taking aim at suburban schools. >> it tore through it like a truck. >> the rising death toll overnight and the frantic search for survivors. >> we were pulling walls off of people, people crawling out from everywhere and anywhere. basically just a war zone. >> and why this same area may be in harm's way yet again today. it's tuesday, may 21st. >> announcer: from abc news, this is "world news now" with john muller and diana perez. and we begin this half hour with the latest on that de...

Roaring, whiring sound, it was so loud and our dogs were just down on the ground shaking. bless their hearts. it was a frightening experience. thank god we had a shelter. >> the dogs were shaking. you know, they don't know what's going on, but they know what's going on. >> yeah. you hear reports about how devastating this funnel cloud was. you take a look at it. it's massive and huge. it looks like it's destroying just a huge swath. really it's not so much the funnel cloud the problem, the debris inside the funnel cloud that is whipping around. it is not only destroying other property, but als...

Bodies are being recovered. >> homes, schools, hospitals, all leveled in that twister. it had wind speeds up to 200 miles an hour. abc's ginger zee reports from moore. >> this is turning into a very destructive tornado and it's getting bigger. >> reporter: a local television helicopter capturing the pictures up in the sky, catching this tornado, ranked a preliminary ef-4. look closely and you can see the flashes as the power lines and transformers are ripped apart. >> there is a huge flash, right there. it is just ripping up everything in its path. >> reporter: from the ground, darkness overwh...

>> announcer: abc news, the country's premiere news brand country's premiere news brand where americans go to see the whole picture, together with yahoo! news, the number one site on the web. this is the number one digital news source. welcome back, pping welcome back. recapping our top story. the death toll is 51. it's expected to rise in the aftermath of the monster tornado in moore, oklahoma. much of the suburban city destroyed including a hospital, a shopping center and sadly an elementary school. >> the tornado was as much as two miles wide at one point. it sfroied everything in its p...

Almost half of those victims are children who were killed when their school took a direct hit. >> the death toll is expected to rise as crews search the rubble overnight. more than 100 people have been treated at the hospital, many of them children. we begin our coverage with weather editor sam champion. >> reporter: the destruction is widespread and devastating. preliminary classified as an ef-4 tornado, the second most powerful level of twister, cutting a path two miles wide and at least 12 miles long. the national weather service says it may have been on the ground for as long as 40 minutes...