Rajkanika (PTI): Concrete roofs ripped off and thrown at a distance, so also a tractor and dozens of houses razed to the ground; all in a matter of five minutes.

A walk through the three km, devastated by a tornado in Rajkanika block of Kendrapara district yesterday afternoon, looked as if it had been bombed, a PTI correspondent visiting the area saw.

The tornado, which had taken a toll of 10 lives and injured over 250 persons in 11 villages, cut a 200 metre swathe for a distance of nearly 3 km, destroying everything in its path.

In Ganja village with about 500 houses, one of the worst hit, concrete roofs were ripped off and flung at a distance of 25 to 30 feet, while there were no trace of thatched houses.

But incredibly enough, villages located hardly 200 metres away, remained untouched.

"I was standing outside my house when it suddenly became very dark and a strong wind started blowing. I could see a huge column of black cloud spiralling towards me about 2 km away," Ashok Panda, a resident of Baghabuda village, said.

As the funnel shaped monster sped towards the villages, it started to rain accompanied by hailstorm.

"It looked like the trunk of an elephant touching the ground advancing our village at high speed. I rushed inside and could see through the window a tractor coming to the village lifted up to a height of about 20 feet," he recalled.

The tractor crashed killing its driver Bishnu Charan Nayak. Panda said "I saw bullock carts and roofs flying in the air. But my house, which was only a few feet away, escaped the whirlwind."

Chittaranjan Mohanty, Kendrapara district Vice-President of the BJP, who was driving towards Rajkanika in a jeep for election campaign also had a terrible experience to share.

"Six of us were travelling in a jeep when the whirlwind struck. A Tata Sumo, which was travelling ahead of us overturned. We immediately jumped out and huddled on the ground," Mohanty said.

Saroj Kumar Behera, a resident of Dalikanda village, said he saw a boat with six persons being plucked into the air and thrown down killing three.

The other three were being treated at the government hospital at Aul for fractures.

Most people said the destruction was wrought between 4.30 p.m. and 4.45 p.m.

A wall clock, found lying in Ganja village, had stopped at 4.31 p.m., suggesting the time when it happened.

Debris were strewn all over while most trees, which fell in the tornado's path, had their top chopped off. Clothes and parts of thatched roofs were found stuck to treetops at many places.

The mud houses in the affected villages were completely razed to the ground.

The block office and post office at Rajkanika, the block headquarter, were badly damaged.

After the destruction stopped, people from neighbouring villages rushed to help the affected and took them to hospital.

Search was on for at least four missing persons, officials said.

The worst hit villages included Ganja, Baghabuda, Gobindapur, Muneidiha, Ustia, Barda, Taila and Dalikanda, all thickly populated and close to the Bhitarkanika National Park. The area is about 15 km from the sea coast.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik visited the area this morning to take stock of the situation.

The administration was making arrangements to provide cooked food to the affected people for three days.