At least three people are dead and 172 more are injured after a rare and powerful tornado tore through Havana ‘like a horror movie’ causing widespread destruction in the east of Cuba’s capital.

Havana was battered late Monday with wind gusts above 100km/h, causing trees to topple, bending power poles and flinging shards of metal roofing through the air.

On Tuesday morning (Australian time), President Miguel Diaz-Canel revealed the scale of the destruction, tweeting that the damage was “severe”.

Power was cut to many areas with pictures shared on social media showing destroyed homes, vehicles overturned and flooded streets.

The reports of deaths and injuries were preliminary and numbers are expected to rise as rescue workers dig through wreckage and search for survivors.

A car knocked over by a tornado lies on a mast. Photo: Getty

Despite being warned of high winds, thunderstorms and heavy rainfall, residents in Havana “did not suspect the magnitude of what was coming” because they had become “accustomed these warnings”, according to local media.

Julio Menendez, a 33-year-old restaurant worker said that Havana’s 10th of October borough and the neighbourhoods of Regla resembled “a horror movie”.

“From one moment to the next, we heard a noise like an aeroplane falling out of the sky. The first thing I did was go hug my daughters,” who are 9 and 12, he said.

Driver Oster Rodriguez said amid a fierce storm, what looked like a thick, swirling cloud touched down in the central plaza of the Reparto Modelo neighbourhood “like a fireball”.

He saw a bus blown over, though he said the driver escaped unharmed.

The windows in the seven-storey Daughters of Galicia Hospital had been sucked out of their frames by the wind, leaving curtains flapping in the breeze, and all the patients, new and expectant mothers, had to be evacuated.

Estamos recorriendo lugares afectados por fenómeno atmosférico de gran intensidad en Regla. Los daños son severos, hasta el momento lamentamos la pérdida de 3 vidas humanas y se atienden 172 heridos. Varias brigadas trabajando ya en el restablecimiento #SomosCuba pic.twitter.com/mPo9yAnaZy

— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) January 28, 2019

In the streets, a palm tree more than nine metres tall had crushed a pre-revolutionary American car.

Photos posted on Twitter by Havana residents showed cars crushed by fallen light posts or trapped in floodwaters around the city.

Leanys Calvo, a restaurant cook in the 10th of October borough, said she was working on Sunday night despite heavy rain and wind when she heard a rumbling noise outside and looked out to see what appeared to be a tornado touching down.

“It was something that touched down, and then took off again. It was like a tower,” she said, describing it as displaying colours of red and green.

“It was here for two-three seconds, nothing more. They were the most frightening seconds of my life.”

-with AAP