Birmingham - A tornado injured 20 people, three seriously in Britain on Thursday as it cut a kilometre-long path of destruction through part of the city of Birmingham.

The sudden, twisting high winds lasted less than a minute, but lifted complete roofs off houses, overturned cars, uprooted hundreds of trees and terrified locals used to the more moderate weather of a British summer.

Hospitals in the central English city said they had treated 20 people, three with serious injuries, while the fire service declared a major incident after sending 15 fire trucks to a single square-kilometre area.

Locals said the tornado arrived without warning in the south of the city at about 2:45 pm (1345 GMT). Brian Cassidy a 30-year-old carpenter, said he had seen rain slanting sideways and joked to a friend: In America you got a hurricane after this.

As the wind picked up ferociously, Cassidy, jumped into a friend's car for safety.

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,

he said. After the tornado passed, Cassidy said, he broke through the door of a damaged house to find a woman and two children inside with no roof above them.

Hundreds of homes were reported to have been damaged, ranging from the loss of chimney stacks or roof tiles to complete roofs blown away. Among the most seriously injured was thought to be a car-park attendant whose wooden hut was reportedly blown down a street.

A similar tornado, though seemingly less serious, struck the town of Peterborough, eastern England, later Thursday afternoon, police said, although no one was thought to have been hurt.

We had numerous reports of structural damage -- trees uprooted, fences blown over, that kind of thing,

a police spokesman said.