“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 nine 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-floor Daughters of Galicia Hospital were sucked out of their frames by the wind, leaving curtains flapping in the breeze, and all the patients, new and expectant mothers, had to flee. In the streets, a palm tree more than nine metres (30 feet) tall crushed a pre-revolutionary American car.

Photos posted on Twitter by Havana residents showed cars crushed by fallen lamp posts or trapped in floodwaters around the city. The neighbourhoods of Regla and 10th of October and the town of San Miguel de Padron had been affected by the tornado.

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.”