Ja'Nae's father Joshua and grandmother Yolanda 

The father of the first of the schoolchildren who lost their lives in the Oklahoma tornado to be named has said he was just too late to save her.

Joshua Hornsby has described how he raced to collect nine-year-old daughter Ja’Nae from the  Plaza Towers elementary school in the suburb of Moore.

"I had to park around the corner from the school and when I hit the corner so I could see the school was gone," he said. "My heart just sank."

Ja'Nae was one of seven children killed when the tornado demolished the site.

Mr Hornsby said he later received a call from the medical examiner.

"He told me that they had my daughter. I knew what he meant but I didn't want to accept it so I kept asking 'what do you mean?'.

"I said 'she's with you, what is she doing?' and that's when he told me she was deceased. That was it."

Ja'Nae's grandmother Yolanda Hornsby said: "It's like taking a piece out of my heart and just, like, stomping on it.

"I'll have to come to terms with... that I won't be able to spend no more Sunday dinners her, no more times at church any more. All of that stuff that we did together - and the smile."