A severe storm has damaged roofs, brought down trees and cut power in the Northland commmunity of Mangawhai overnight.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand said they were responding to multiple calls after a “reported tornado” around 3am this morning.

Response Coordinator Graeme Quensell said firefighters from several brigades in the area were assisting residents and other crews had been dispatched from Auckland.

Quensell said roofs had been lifted from homes and trees and powerlines had been knocked down.

So far, they had received around 16 calls from Mangawhai and one from Langs Beach.

Northpower said on its website that up to 4700 homes initially lost power. At 6am, around 3600 homes were still without electricity.

“We have a widespread outage affecting all of our network due to a TORNADO damaging property and power lines in the wider Mangawhai Area,” Northpower said.

“We are currently assessing the situation and will update the information when we can. Please treat all lines and equipment as LIVE at all times. We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.”

Quensell said that people in the area should wait until daylight to assess damage to their property. Residents should also avoid driving in the area emergency services are not held up.

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