Tornado kills 3, hits 150 homes in New Zealand

[NewsCaster]

Three people were killed when an unusually destructive tornado swept through New Zealand. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.By NBC News staff and wire reportsRescue crews were still looking for victims Thursday after a tornado touched down in the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, killing three people and tearing through some 150 homes, local media reported.

Follow @NBCNewsWorld  At least seven people were hospitalized, the New Zealand Herald reported.


The tornado, driven by a powerful storm cell, tore concrete slabs from a  building site and dropped them onto a truck, killing two people inside, a fire  services spokesman said. A third person was killed by a falling tree.

Rescue teams were searching a school site for  workers thought to be trapped beneath fallen concrete blocks in the west  Auckland suburb of Hobsonville.

"I saw it  coming across the river, the air went very electric and the sky went black. And  then the wind started to whistle. This was like a juggernaut roaring through  here," witness Suzanne McFadden told New Zealand's Newstalk ZB radio.  

Hobsonville is the site of a new town center near Auckland, which is  home to 1.3 million people, roughly a third of the New Zealand population.Nigel Marple / ReutersRescue workers inspect the scene where  two men were crushed to death in a truck when a tornado struck the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand, on Thursday.

NBCNews