Taranaki tornado sends resident's eight-tonne campervan flying

Lepperton resident Kylie Stelton was devastated to find her eight-tonne campervan flipped over on to her deck during the vicious tornado. Photo / Supplied

A rural New Plymouth resident is devastated after discovering her eight-tonne campervan had been picked up and flung on to her deck during this morning's vicious tornado.

"I've never experienced anything like it. It was very, very scary," Kylie Stelton told the Herald, still in shock.

Stelton, who lives in Lepperton on the outskirts of New Plymouth, said no one was home when it happened and it was the rural postie who indirectly alerted her to the mess.

"He must have been late today and saw it and thought, 'oh shivers, this doesn't look right,' and rung someone else who rung me, you know the way rural communities work.

The New Plymouth campervan has been written off after the tornado lifted it into the air and landed it sideways. Photo / Supplied

"I was like, damn, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. It picked up eight tonnes and placed it on our deck, which is pretty crazy," Stelton said.

She said the auto salvage company collected the campervan, which had been in the family for four years, and informed her it was a write-off.

Luckily, they had insurance to cover it.

Unfortunately, Stelton said she wasn't the only one to have experienced significant damage from the tornado.

"There's fences that have been destroyed, I've seen a couple of Facebook posts that another little campervan had rolled.

A vehicle was also struck by a nearby trampoline.

A police spokeswoman said there were no reports of injury in that instance "but the person is a little shook up, as you can imagine".

A spokesman for Fire and Emergency NZ said they were called to Paraite Rd after reports that a tornado had hit a building. One person suffered moderate injuries.

Firefighters were also sent to a house in Henwood Rd after part of its roof was ripped off.