Car rams into crowd in Berlin
A man has driven a car into a crowd in Berlin’s central Charlottenburg district, city police reported on Wednesday. At least one person was killed and several others seriously hurt in the incident.The fire department said eight people had been injured.
The police gave the number of wounded as 12, including five whose lives were in danger. In the initial stages of the operation, rescue workers were working on the basis that as many as 30 people had been hurt.
Berlin police said they have not yet determined if the motorist’s action was intentional or accidental. The driver has been arrested, they said on Twitter.
Berlin’s city traffic control center urged drivers to avoid the area, which has been cordoned off by law enforcement.
Local media reported that the incident occurred on the corner of Rankestrasse and Tauentzienstrasse. The location is close to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, one of Berlin’s famous landmarks.
Eyewitnesses told Die Welt that the car had driven at a high speed from the west, leaving a trail of destruction in its path before crashing into a shop window. Berliner Zeitung said that witnesses identified the car as a silver Renault and described the driver as a young person.
Die Welt said its sources identified the fatality as a teacher who was standing with a group of students at the time the ramming incident took place.
The incident occurred not far from the site of the December 2016 terrorist attack in which a radical Islamist deliberately drove a truck through a Christmas market operating next to the historic church. That attack claimed 12 lives and left 56 people injured.
