You can use: TO RIP or RIP APART, TO TEAR or TEAR APART, TO SPLIT, TO BREAK or BREAK APART. I wouldn´t use BREAK OFF , which has almost the same meaning but is slightly different in usage.

Synonyms: tear, rip, rend, split, cleave
 These verbs mean to separate or pull apart by force. Tear involves pulling something apart or into pieces: "She tore the letter in shreds" 
 Rip implies rough or forcible tearing: Carpenters ripped up the old floorboards.
 Rend usually refers to violent tearing or wrenching apart: "Come as the winds come, when/Forests are rended" 
 To split is to cut or break something into parts or layers, especially along its entire length or along a natural line of division: "They [wood stumps] warmed me twice—once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire" 

Cleave most often refers to splitting with or as if with a sharp instrument: The butcher cleft the side of beef into smaller portions.

Break is the most general: The window was broken by vandals. I broke my arm when I fell. That delicate ornament will break easily.

Geovaine.