The incident revived memories of 2016, when a man in the same area of Berlin hijacked a truck, killed the driver and entered a crowded Christmas market and killed 11 more people.
Investigators were investigating whether the incident was a deliberate attack or possibly an accident with a medical cause, a police spokesman said earlier, adding that the driver had received some medical treatment after the accident.
Police officers cover a corpse at the sight of the crash. Credit: AP Photo / Michael Sohn
The Bild newspaper published a picture of the arrested driver, wearing a yellow sweater, jogging pants and red sneakers.
More than 100 emergency workers crowded the site after the incident. The small silver Renault car was housed inside a store after breaking a glass screen, Reuters images showed.
The blankets covered what looked like a body in a cordoned off area guarded by police. Lifeguards rushed apparently conscious people on bunks to an ambulance, including a woman sitting and another who covered her face with her hand.
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“I heard the explosion and the crash when we were at a store, and then we went out and saw the butcher,” John Barrowman, an actor, said in a video posted on his Twitter account.
The place, on a shopping street near a McDonald’s restaurant, was cordoned off. Spectators watched a helicopter fly overhead.
The nearby Europa Center complex was later evacuated in case the crashed car contained explosives, police said.
“The federal government, of course, has learned of this terrible incident in Berlin today and is very concerned and anxious about it,” a government spokesman said. “Our thoughts, our sympathy are with the injured and their families.”
The incident took place near the scene of the attack on December 19, 2016, when Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist ties, threw a truck at a crowded Christmas market in west Berlin, killing 11 more and injuring dozens more.
Amri then fled to Italy, where he was shot dead by Italian police.
A police spokesman said police had learned from the 2016 experience in dealing with Wednesday’s incident.