A car crashed into a crowd in Berlin, killing one person and leaving five with fatal injuries in a neighborhood of the German capital popular with tourists and shoppers.
Key points:
- It is unknown if this was an accident or a deliberate act
- Police say the driver received medical attention and is investigating all possibilities
- More than 130 emergency services are responding to the incident
More than a dozen people were injured, a police spokesman said at the scene in West Berlin, next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, one of Germany’s best-known monuments.
“It is believed that a man entered a group of people. It is not yet known if it was an accident or a deliberate act,” said police, who added that spectators had arrested the driver at the scene before hand it over to the authorities.
“Right now we are at the scene with about 130 emergency personnel,” police added. “The vehicle, a small car, was insured on the spot.”
Investigators were investigating whether the incident was a deliberate attack or possibly an accident with a medical cause, a police spokesman said.
Police were investigating all possibilities, the spokesman said, adding that the driver had received some medical treatment.
It is not known if it was an accident or a deliberate act. (Reuters: Michele Tantussi)
Blankets covered what looked like a body in a cordoned off area guarded by police, Reuters images showed.
A small silver Renault car was housed inside a shop after breaking a glass window.
Lifeguards rushed apparently conscious people on bunks to an ambulance, including a woman sitting and another who covered her face with her hand.
John Barrowman, an actor who was at the scene, told Sky News in the UK: “I saw a woman getting into an ambulance … it looked like someone was being resurrected.”
The place, on a shopping street near a McDonald’s restaurant, was cordoned off. Spectators watched a helicopter fly overhead.
The incident took place near the scene of a deadly attack on December 19, 2016, when Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist ties, hijacked a truck, killed the driver and then he threw it at a crowded Christmas market in west Berlin, and killed it. 11 more people and dozens more injured.
Amri then fled to Italy, where he was shot dead by Italian police.
Reuters