A towering tree snapped in two and crashed onto a crowd of people in bustling Bryant Park on Friday afternoon — injuring five people, two of them seriously, authorities said.

Ozzie Haith, who was playing chess beneath the tree near the carousel, said it sounded like a gunshot when the trunk snapped about 18 feet above its base.

The top portion — roughly 25 feet tall — then started leaning over before toppling to the ground just before 4 p.m., he said.

“People were just hysterical. It shows you how Mother Nature can devastate you,” said Haith, who managed to get out of the way in the nick of time.

Another chess player, Vladimir Zark, 19, who was also under the tree, said, “I had wood splinters in my eye. I was showered with wood. It was inches away from me.”

Two chess players weren’t as lucky — both were injured, Zark said.

The loud noise of the tree cracking and the fact that it leaned over for several seconds before falling spurred people to scatter, likely preventing more injuries.

“I heard a crackling and [saw] the tree hanging and everyone ran away, everyone was so scared,” said Emin Vatansever, who had been playing guitar nearby.

One woman suffered what a witness described as a compound fracture to the arm — the most serious injury — when she was caught in the panic.

“It bounced off her arm. Her arm went limp. You could see the bone sticking out,” said Christian Cantalupo, 32, of Manhattan, who was reading at a table beneath the tree.

A security worker said there were about 1,600 people in the park when the tree fell.

The FDNY said the injured included three women and two men, and that three suffered minor injuries while the other two had serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Authorities said all five were taken to Bellevue Hospital.

The Parks Department will remove what’s left of the tree and will investigate how it snapped, a spokeswoman said.

Additional reporting by Aaron Feis