At least 13 people were killed and more than 200 injured when a tornado ripped through Ciudad Acuña, a border town of 125,000 located in the Mexican state of Coahuila, across from Del Rio, Texas, The Associated Press reported.

The twister, which struck not long after daybreak, destroyed homes, flung cars like matchsticks and tore an infant from a mother's arms, the newswire detailed. Coahuila Interior Secretary Victor Zamora said it "devastated" an entire neighborhood.

"It hit an area of about seven blocks," the secretary detailed.

The part of the city where the tornado struck is densely populated, making the damage particularly severe, the AP noted. Some 750 homes were at least partially affected, unidentified federal officials told CNN México.

Coahuila Gov. Rubén Moreira Valdez said there had been no warning or meteorological alert prior to the tornado's impact, and officials told the channel that records do not show such a powerful twister hitting the city in more than a century.

"It happened with terrible suddenness," Moreira said. "It is the first time that a tornado has been felt in an urban zone of Acuña; there are no records (of a similar incident) in history," the governor added.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, meanwhile, announced he was planning a visit to the affected area to survey the damage, according to CNN.

Photos from the scene showed cars with their hoods ripped off, resting upended against single-story houses, the AP detailed. The frame of one of the vehicles was bent around the gate of a house.

Homero Iracheta, a resident walking around the damaged area, told CNN that he saw part of a car that had been tossed to the summit of a hill. "You can also see another truck that was flung by the wind into the side of the hill," Iracheta added.

Acuña is a historic border town that people outside of Mexico know as the setting for Robert Rodriguez's films "El Mariachi" and "Desperado," the news channel recalled.