The man killed in a devastating tornado yesterday was hurled into the air by 200kmh winds from an Albany building site and slammed into a concrete car park, witnesses say.
A student nurse last night described how she tried desperately to save his life. Sophie Bond stood over the man, believed to be in his 30s, whose head was split wide open.
"I tried to give him mouth-to-mouth but his lungs were too filled with blood and there was nothing I could do," Miss Bond said.
"Debris, metal and cars were flying through the air - they were just picked up and tossed around like it was nothing and thrown back down."
The death toll from the tornado last night stood at one, down from earlier reports of up to three fatalities.
Fourteen people, including several children, were injured.
The dead man and two of the severely injured victims worked for Fletcher Construction and were at the old PlaceMakers building when the tornado hit.
Across the car park, a 5-month-old girl and two other children were injured when the car they were in was turned upside down, its windscreen smashed and bonnet ripped off.
Nathan Grey (21) and Adam Ellington (17) were at Burger Fuel across the road when they heard rolling thunder "like a plane landing".
Mr Grey said two men were working on the roof of the building when the swirling wind tore through.
"The sky split - there was light on one side and clouds on the other, then the wind started spiralling.
"It picked the men up and they were thrown high into the air and were tossed about. Then they fell back down and slammed into the car park."
Mr Grey ran across the road and saw several bloodied people lying among the debris.
"There was blood everywhere. A group of people huddled around one of the workers ... They were trying to do CPR - but then all sense of emergency stopped and I knew he was dead."
Fletcher chief executive Mark Binns said last night the dead man was working in a side office at the site when the tornado ripped through.
"We're all obviously totally shocked," he said.
"The tornado has hit the PlaceMakers building and devastated it. When do you expect to go to work in the morning and have something like this?"
The tornado hit the Fletcher Construction site "smack on"and it had been shocking to see film images of the destruction it caused, he said.
"The site superintendent was outside and his leg was badly gashed by falling metal. A subcontractor working on the site was also badly injured and is in Auckland Hospital."
The PlaceMakers car park was the worst-hit area, but the tornado continued its rampage from Albany south.
It took only a matter of minutes, but the terror struck thousands of Aucklanders. Road closures caused havoc with the evening traffic, and sirens of emergency vehicles speeding among the damage blared across the city.
Anna Downie watched from a hill as roof after roof was ripped off homes; Richard Turner stood awestruck as the tornado picked up cars, flinging them skyward; Helena Campbell returned to her car to find it crushed and 100m away from where it had been parked.
Ashley Abbott grabbed her two children under her arm out from the path of the tornado, tossing them into her bathroom away from glass; three children screamed and cowered in Jane Grayson's car as a howling grey wall thrashed across it.
Birkenhead library patrons ran downstairs to take shelter in the basement.
Hospital staff were expecting more injured people to arrive last night.
"Everybody was crying and screaming. I felt like the whole ceiling was going to cave in," said Monique Virtue, who was in the Albany mall near PlaceMakers. "I heard a humungous thud ... I turned around and ran down the escalators."
She ran for safety into Toyworld, glass and debris falling around her.
Peter Hunt rushed out from the mall and saw the ravaging tornado less than 100m away.
"Everything was flying around - you couldn't get the dimensions of it," he said.
"You didn't know if if was coming towards you or away from you. I wanted to get back inside but they wouldn't let us."
The sights were unbelievable for the thousands looking on from office windows.
But for the dozens who were in their homes as the tornado struck, the sound was like nothing they had ever heard before.
"It was like everything else went silent and all you could hear was the howling - an overwhelming whistling - and I was planted on the ground cry ing because I didn't know what to do," said Suzanne Remkes, from her Glenfield home.
Anamaria Franco said the minutes stretched on, getting worse and worse.
"The doors were banging, trying to open on their own, and you hear the roof moving above you. You realise it's not just a storm - it's something else you don't want to name," she said.
Marley Field, who works at Sealegs in Albany, was outside.
"I saw sheets of something in the sky, I thought it was cardboard. But then it started to fall down and it was really hitting the ground hard. Then we realised it was sheets of metal."
Mr Field said debris was being flung from the middle of the tornado.
"You could see it rotating ... and once it moved off you could see the dark cloud in the rotating vortex. It was crazy."
