Roofs were torn off of several buildings and four rowers were seriously hurt in Kiel’s dockside area after being flung from their boats by a waterspout triggered by the freak weather system last night. A fire brigade spokesman said: “They were whirled around and people fell into the water.”
First responders leapt into the water to rescue people, with several suffering minor injuries after being hit by flying debris.
Prior to reaching the dockside, the tornado has wreaked havoc in the city, damaging roofs in the Keil-Meimersdorf district and ripping off tiles in the Gaarden area as well.
Kiel-Meimersdorf resident Barbara Wittich’s told NDR news: “It was a huge shock. The upstairs-floor was shaking. Then I screamed. I couldn’t breathe.
“Then my husband came upstairs and said: ‘What’s going on?'”
Roughly 60 emergency workers were deployed, with firefighters attending two dozen incidents.
Police reports suggested there may in fact have been two tornadoes, while one eyewitness believes there could have been even more.
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Waterspouts fall into two categories: fair weather waterspouts and tornadic waterspouts.
Tornadic waterspouts are tornadoes which form over water, or move from land to water.
They have the same characteristics as a land tornado and are generally associated with severe thunderstorms.
They are usually accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning.
Kiel has been warned by the DWD to brace itself for more high winds and heavy rainfall as the weekend approaches.
Twin tornadoes lashed Lincolnshire earlier this week, damaging properties and tipping a motorhome on to its side.
Bob Salt, a resident of Buttermere Crescent in Humberston, told BBC Radio Humberside: “I was in my front room when I heard a swoosh.
“Then my wife shouted: ‘Come and have a look at this!’
“We came out and the walls had collapsed all around us and the fence had gone.
“The campervan next door had blown out of his drive into the one next door and every bit of wall in the garden was blown over.”
Hours earlier, Hull Live reported on a separate tornado in the village of Thorngumbald, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
One picture shared on social media by local plumber Steve Richardson showed a garage with its roof blown entirely off, a damaged brick wall, plus what looks to be another motorhome on its side.