BRITAIN: Hundreds of people in Birmingham were last night coming to terms with the devastation caused by a mini-tornado.
Twenty people were injured when the tornado stripped houses of roofs, uprooted hundreds of trees and knocked down walls. The tornado, which lasted no more than a minute wherever it struck, left a 1km trail of destruction through south Birmingham.
Witnesses saw the winds lift cars and turn street signs and masonry into missiles when the tornado hit at about 2.45pm.
The Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath, Moseley and Kings Heath areas were worst affected, 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 1sq km area where hundreds of buildings were damaged - many losing their entire roofs.
A section of the city's so-called "Balti Belt" was left with fruit, glass, masonry, tyres and furniture littering the streets.
In Kings Heath the winds picked up a car-park attendant's hut and blew it across the road. Unconfirmed reports suggested 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 injured after being hit by a street sign.
Kings Heath is less than half a mile from the scene of an incident in 1999 when winds blew over a roadside tree on to several vehicles, killing three people.