Ciudad Acuna, Mexico - Shortly after daybreak on Monday, a tornado ripped through the border city of Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, with a ferocity that officials said hasn't been witnessed in more than 15 years.

The tornado raged through the city in 6 seconds, destroying homes, flinging cars like matchsticks and ripping an infant from its mother's arms.

The baby went missing after the twister ripped the child's carrier from the mother's hands and sent it flying. Rescue workers dug through the rubble of damaged homes in a race to find victims.

"It hit an area of about seven blocks," said Victor Zamora, interior secretary of the State of Coahuila, describing the neighborhood as "devastated."

Photos from the scene showed cars with their hoods ripped off, resting upended against single-story houses.

About 300 homes were affected, according to a press statement from the Coahuila Government. "There's nothing standing, not walls, not roofs," said Edgar Gonzalez, a spokesman for the city government, describing some of the destroyed homes in a 3-square kilometer (1 square mile) stretch.

By midday, 13 people were confirmed dead — 10 adults and three infants. At least five people were unaccounted for, and at least 300 people were taken to local hospitals for treatment, Mayor Evaristo Perez Rivera said.

At one point the tornado reached a speed of 220 km/h (137 mph). Most of those who died were walking on the street when it struck, officials said.

Civil protection officials said that eight temporary shelters have been set up for those made homeless by the disaster.

The tornado activity is part of a line of storms stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes that dumped record rainfall in the United States on parts of the Plains and Midwest, spawning tornadoes and causing major flooding that forced at least 2,000 Texans from their homes.