A tornado hit a southern Chinese city early Friday morning, leaving 16 students, three teachers and another person injured.

The tornado in Wuchuan City, Guangdong Province, blasted three village for about 10 minutes around 8 am, witnesses said.

A primary school was damaged in the strong wind, leaving 16 students and three teachers injured, a director of the school surnamed Liang said.

The tornado arrived when the teachers were having a meeting upstairs in the school.

"The clouds engulfed the sky suddenly. A rolling pillar came down to our teaching building with the crashing sounds of broken windows," Liang said.

All the school windows were broken, desks and chairs were thrown together, and trees around the school were cut in half by the wind, local people said.

Students and teachers were hurt by the glass shards.

Hundreds of pigs and ducks at a farm near the school were blown away,witnesses said. "I saw a buffalo fly up to four meters high and drop meters away," said a villager named Ning Rongbiao.

The three injured teachers had left hospital and all the students receiving medical treatment were in stable condition, said doctors at the local hospital.

Editor: Yan