Havoc As Tornado Swarm Rips Through Texas

A series of tornadoes have ripped through Texas, hurling lorries into the air, destroying buildings and injuring at least 17 people.

The United States National Weather Service confirmed that two separate "supercells" had formed on Tuesday afternoon.

It warned: "Take cover now! Go to the safest room or interior room in your home or business!

"This is a life-threatening situation!"

Dramatic footage filmed from a helicopter showed a Dallas lorry park being hit by one of the monster storms and some vehicles being thrown like toy cars high into the air.

Truck driver Michael Glennon said one lorry was "ripped to pieces" and thrown up to 100ft high by powerful winds.

Preliminary estimates say up to 12 twisters struck in north Texas but firm numbers are not expected until later when the full scale of the damage is known.

Electrical transformers could be seen exploding in some areas and overturned cars left some roads blocked.

Carver Malone, a resident of the Dallas suburb of Lancaster, was at home when the violent weather struck.

"I was just laying there and then all of sudden it sounded like a train was coming and I was on the track.

"I was in the way I guess, I don't know. It was just: boom, boom, boom."

The Dallas-Fort Worth international airport was closed as the storms swept into the region and all flights were grounded.

As the storm passed, airport spokesman David Magana said officials were trying to protect passengers from glass windows by moving them into stairwells and toilets.

The first twister reportedly touched down at 1pm, about 20 miles south of Dallas and started to move east.

As the tornado shifted across Dallas County, another one developed in Mansfield, just south of Arlington, in Tarrant County.

National Weather Service meteorologist Amber Elliott said there were "reports of wall clouds and funnel clouds all over the area. It's an extremely dangerous situation".

April is the peak of the US tornado season, which runs from March until June.

Forecasters said the twisters were caused by a slow-moving storm system centred over northern New Mexico.