Photo / Rob Crawford aka @noozeeland via Twitpic
A roof has collapsed at a mall in the Auckland suburb of Albany and the building is being evacuated, reports say. Police have confirmed injuries in the area.
The Fire Service has dispatched multiple appliances to the area and is receiving 111 calls from residents.
Samantha Davey from Albany Optometrists said it appeared that part of the roof at the neighbouring Albany Mega Centre had been torn away.
“We are a bit above the mall, looking down from our building we can see part of the mall roof is gone,” she said.
“It looks like it’s the bit behind Number 1 shoe Warehouse but our building is a bit above on Corinthian Drive so it’s hard to tell.
“There’s people at Work and Income, they said they saw a car swept up in it.”
Miss Davey said the tornado passed “fairly quickly” but wasn’t roaring as it may have been imagined.
One of her colleagues said her in-laws lost a few tiles of their roof in Unsworth.
The tornado is believed to have hit at 3pm and ended after a couple of minutes.
