Kansas, Nebraska tornadoes unleash tigers from zoo

An Oklahoma City woman drowned in a storm cellar after 51 tornadoes and fierce storms tore across parts of the Midwest on Wednesday and pounded Oklahoma, officials said.

The 42-year-old woman was trapped in an underground shelter in her yard as torrential rain filled it up with water, Sgt. Gary Knight told the New York Daily News.

"It was like a river running over the shelter and she couldn't get out," he said, noting it was an old cellar not built to modern standards.

Her boyfriend found the unidentified woman's body in the storms' only reported fatality, Knight said.

At least 20 people were injured, five of them critically so, according to local reports.

More