Twenty Hurt As Tornado Hits Birmingham

9:59pm UK, Thursday July 28, 2005

Hundreds of Birmingham residents are coming to terms with the devastation caused by a terrifying mini-tornado.

Twenty people were injured when the freak twister stripped houses of their roofs, uprooted hundreds of trees and knocked down walls.

Cars suffered damage

The tornado, which lasted no more than a minute wherever it struck, left a one-kilometre trail of destruction through the south of the city.

Witnesses saw the winds lift cars and turn street signs and masonry into missiles when they hit the city.

The Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath, Moseley and Kings Heath areas were worst hit, and West Midlands Ambulance Service confirmed that it had treated 20 patients, including three with serious injuries.

West Midlands Fire Service declared a "major incident" after deploying 15 appliances to a one square kilometre area where hundreds of buildings were damaged - many losing their entire roofs.

A section of the city's so-called "Balti Belt" - which centres on Ladypool Road, Sparkbrook - was left resembling a war zone - with fruit, glass, masonry, tyres and furniture littering the streets.

Eyewitness Brian Cassidy noticed the wind picking up and jumped into his friend's car and watched as the tornado passed over.

The 30-year-old carpenter, from Balsall Heath, said: "It hit a roof and just lifted it off.

"It was definitely a twisting motion. I could see grown men on a garage forecourt crying, holding their ears."

In Kings Heath the winds were strong enough to pick up a car park attendant's wooden hut on Institute Road, off the High Street, and blow it across the road.

Unconfirmed reports suggested that the car park attendant was one of the people taken to hospital.

Others injured were said to include a woman whose leg and arms were sliced open by a street sign.

Students Leyla Turkoglu was in a nearby supermarket car park when the tornado swept through.

Leyla, 18, said: "People were running inside to get out of it. Then we saw roof tiles flying around and then trees landing on the road."

Roads were cordoned off as dozens of trees, some as high as 50ft, had toppled into front gardens and roadways.

A West Midlands Fire Service spokeswoman said hundreds of people in affected roads had left their homes but no formal evacuation procedure had been implemented.

Weather forecasters said a second tornado struck in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in the late afternoon.

Police said the high winds caused structural damage in the Paston area of the city but they were not aware of anyone being hurt.