A Chinese student was injured after being whirled high up in the air by an unexpected dust devil. Courtesy CCTV+

A GROUP of schoolchildren in China got a nasty surprise when “dust devils” tore through their sports field, sending kids and debris flying.

The three mini twisters ripped through Yuanquan Primary School, in China’s northern Gansu province, lifting one boy off the ground before dumping him back down to earth reported Chinese state-run broadcaster CCTV.

The student who was flung into the air suffered minor head injuries and was taken to hospital.

“We immediately started to evacuate the students. But in a very short time, the second round of the dust devil arrived,” Fang Fang, a teacher at the school, told CCTV as reported by NBC News.

Students tried to lay flat to avoid being sucked into the air.

“We brought the short and thin children together to lie on the ground,” Fang told CCTV.

Tong Ruiyang, a police officer at the Guazhou Public Security Bureau said, “It [twister] was at least three meters high. I rushed to him and tried to catch him. But just in two or three seconds, the student fell to the ground”.