HAUTMONT (France), Aug 4: A freak tornado ripped through towns in northern France overnight, killing three people and injuring nine as it gutted houses and hurled cars through the air, officials said on Monday.

A fourth person, a man of 76, committed suicide after his house was demolished by the storm.

Packing violent winds and lashing rain, the tornado carved a 10-kilometre (six-mile) swathe late Sunday night, destroying some 40 homes in the space of minutes in Hautmont, the worst-hit of the four towns on its path.

“There was a deep roaring sound, like a bomb raid,” said local resident Erick Filleur, who was jolted out of his sleep by the storm.

“My wife was watching television. Then suddenly my daughter cried out, my shutters exploded and part of our roof flew off.” A woman in her seventies was killed in Hautmont when her house caved in, medics said, while rescue workers Monday pulled the bodies of the deputy mayor and his wife from the rubble of their home.

Local authorities said later that the 76-year-old man, also from Hautmont, shot himself as firemen continued to search the rubble of the wrecked houses.

“The windows of my apartment suddenly blew up. I lay down on the ground, I just thought I was going to die,” said Mustapha Rbide, another of the town’s 16,000 residents.

His neighbour Samia Sayah said her baby’s crib was sent flying around the bedroom by the force of the wind, although the seven-month-old infant was unharmed.

Torn metal sheets, ripped electric cabling, roof tiles, gravel and bricks littered the town’s two worst-hit streets on Monday morning, as 200 rescue workers with sniffer dogs combed the debris for possible victims.

Red Cross volunteers were handing out hot drinks and biscuits, blankets and clothes as shocked residents wandered through the streets, snapping pictures of the devastation with their mobile phones.

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie was to travel to Hautmont to survey the storm damage on Monday afternoon, her office said.—AFP