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A series of mini-tornados carved a path through the centre of England today, forcing residents to flee and damaging buildings in Farnborough, Nuneaton, Northampton, Luton and Nottingham.

One motorist saw a car lifted up and thrown across the road at Eye in Cambridgeshire, local police said. Elsewhere trees were uprooted, caravans up-ended and cars damaged by roof tiles sent flying by the storms, though no injuries were reported.

A spokeswoman for Cambridgeshire police said that the car concerned and a van had been seriously damaged in the incident on the A47. Though the witness’s report had not been verified, she explained, “he said it was an amazing sight.”

A falling branch ripped part of the roof from a school bus in Northamptonshire – fortunately before it had picked up any children. Police said the area’s officers were dealing with 15 reports of roads blocked by trees or branches, and were also working to remove branches from the roofs of two houses.

Roofs were ripped from ten houses in Farnborough, while trees were uprooted. One local resident, Terry Parrot, 50, said the tornado had cut straight through a row of garages, lifting the roofs off and damaging the cars inside.

Parrott, 50, said he was first alerted to the approaching tornado when his dogs began howling at the winds buffeting his house.

“They must have seen something coming. They knew something was up,” he said.

“I looked out of my bedroom window and could see this huge whirling thing come through between the two houses and it lifted the garage roofs up. It just picked everything up, even stuff that was nailed down. It was incredible, and then after 90 seconds it was all gone, it was all over.”

However he dismissed rumours that a dog had been seen flying through the air during the tornado.

He said: “There was a small cocker spaniel that was missing from a garden but about 40 minutes later it was found walking around in a bedraggled state, but I don’t think it went flying around.”

“It was like something out of The Wizard of Oz,” fellow resident Hayley Stroud, 27, said, describing how a “twister” had destroyed her chimney stack.

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