Several tornadoes and severe thunderstorms left a trail of destruction across central Germany on Wednesday evening.

In the Westerwald, between Cologne and Frankfurt, roofs were torn off, walls were ripped from houses, and entire sections of woodland were destroyed.

The storms also left their mark in the federal states of Hesse, Thuringia and Brandenburg where trees were uprooted and basements were flooded.

In Fürstenwalde, south-east of Berlin, a tornado also caused severe damage, leaving three people injured. Several blocks of flats and a nursery were damaged, and some flats are uninhabitable for the time being.