This haunting, apocalyptic landscape was once part of the thriving suburb of Moore, Okla.
The obliterated neighborhood and others in the town on the outskirts of Oklahoma City were wiped out by Monday’s killer tornado, which was 600 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Authorities tirelessly dug through the rubble of shredded houses, schools and the downtown business district yesterday in search of possible survivors or bodies. But the town’s fire chief said he was “98 percent’’ certain they had accounted for everyone, alive or dead.
As rescuers used GPS units to guide them through streets with no signs or anything else recognizable, Fire Chief Gary Bird said a search had been conducted at every collapsed building, but they were triple-checking, just to be sure.
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, touring the wasteland, said, “No one possibly could have survived this — and yet, we know they did.”
Meanwhile, in other developments yesterday:
* The official death toll was reduced from 51 to 24. It included nine children.
*Seven of the dead kids were identified as students from the crushed Plaza Towers Elementary School. Many had been herded to the basement, and drowned as the walls caved in and water pipes ruptured.
*At least another 237 people — including about 60 youngsters — were injured in the storm, which cut a 20-mile swath through the town of 40,000 with 200-mph winds just as the school day was ending.
*Scientists said the calculation that the force of the storm was hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb was based on its wind speeds, range and the amount of destruction it caused in such a brief period.
*President Obama declared a major disaster area in the state, ordering immediate federal aid. Underscoring the heartbreak of the tragedy, he said from the White House, “Among the victims were young children trying to take shelter in the safest place they knew — their school.”
*Tales of heroism and heartache abounded, as stricken relatives learned that their loved ones had perished, while amazing stories surfaced of teachers saving their young students’ lives by shielding them from falling debris.
The monster storm — with a half-mile-wide funnel — wreaked its unimaginable destruction in 40 minutes.
Its fierce winds tossed double tractor-trailers around like toys, sent cars flying with such force that they became embedded in walls and pulverized even well-constructed buildings.
With a warning of little more than 15 minutes, residents such as Ninia Lay, 48, scurried for safety anywhere they could.
“I was hiding in the closet, and I heard something like a train coming,” Lay said.
She wound up buried under the rubble of her house for two hours before she was able to reach her husband by cellphone and rescuers pulled her out.
Chelsie McCumber and her 2-year-old son, Ethan, also squeezed into a closet, and she took in some extra protection — a mattress.
When the boy began complaining that he was hot, “I told him we’re going to play tent in the closet,” McCumber said, starting to cry.
“I just felt air, so I knew the roof was gone. I was kind of holding my breath thinking this isn’t the worst of it. I didn’t think that was it. I kept waiting for it to get worse.
“When I got out, it was worse than I thought,” she said.
Lt. Gov. Tom Lamb likened the destruction to a “two-mile-wide lawnmower blade going over a community.”
Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis, who took refuge in the vault at his jewelry store along with his employees, said, “You can’t tell where you’re at.
“The whole city looks like a debris field.”
Plaza Towers and Briarwood Elementary School were completely demolished, but it appeared that no one died at Briarwood, officials said. At a local high school, students trapped in the field house donned football helmets to protect themselves.
Incredibly, most children at the schools survived, with dozens plucked to safety from the concrete rubble amid torn school books and backpacks.
Stricken parents rushed to several local churches that were set up as meeting spots, to be reunited with their kids as organizers shouted out names through bullhorns.
The sites were scenes of both joy and heartbreak.
“It was very emotional — some people just holding on to each other, crying because they couldn’t find a child,’’ said D.A. Bennett, senior pastor at St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church.
Tammy Searcy, 33, told The Post that she knew five of the dead children through church.
“Their parents are still in shock, in disbelief,” she said sadly. “They’re still hoping that they’re going to wake up, and this is just a nightmare.
“They never knew when they dropped their kids off that they wouldn’t get them back. They never imagined. School’s a safe place.”
Neither Plaza nor Briarwood had a storm shelter, so some of the students at Plaza wound up taking refuge in the basement and died there.
“Quite frankly, [I] don’t mean to be graphic, but that’s why some of the children drowned, because they were in the basement area,” Lamb told CNN.
The storm also nearly flattened the town’s only hospital.
“We had a two-story hospital — now we have a one. And it’s not occupiable,” said Lewis.
With Post Wire Services
ksheehy@nypost.com