(Bloomberg) -- A tornado tore through the northeast of Hamburg on Tuesday evening, blowing off the roofs of several buildings, uprooting dozens of trees and damaging cars and a power line as storms that have raged across Europe this month continued to reap destruction.

More than 1,000 firefighters, police and other emergency personnel worked from the evening hours until early on Wednesday to clear fallen trees and roof tiles off the streets and eliminate hazards at more than 250 sites along the twister’s 500-meter (1,640-foot) path through the city, which is home to Germany’s biggest port.

“In one street, the whirlwind knocked down more than 50 huge trees,” said Jan Ole Unger, a spokesman at the Hamburg fire department. A power line had to be switched off after being hit by a tree, temporarily cutting electricity for some households in the area. “It’s a miracle that nobody was hurt or killed,” said Unger.

Insurance claims

There is a “very high probability” that the vortex of violent winds was a tornado, meaning the wind funnel touched the ground, Andreas Friedrich, a tornado expert at Germany’s DWD National Meteorological Service, said by phone. In March 2006, a twister overthrew cranes at a construction site in Hamburg’s port area, killing the two drivers of the cranes, according to Friedrich.