Tornado in Japan
© NHK World
At least 27 people have been hospitalised after a rare tornado ripped through a suburb of Tokyo.

Several dozen people were injured when a tornado ripped through parts of eastern Japan on Monday, tearing off roofs and uprooting trees.

Footage shot by public broadcaster NHK shows a number of homes destroyed, upturned cars, schools with shattered windows and a warehouse that had been lifted from its foundations and hurled into other buildings in Koshigaya, north of Tokyo.

Some electricity poles had been snapped and a number of them had hit houses as they fell, worsening the damage.

The Koshigaya city hall said 29 people were injured, three of them seriously, in the city alone. Local news reports said most of the injured were members of a volleyball team at a local middle school.

A meteorologist at Japan's weather agency said the tornado was caused by warm, wet air coming inland over flat areas.