A motorist driving a Mercedes-Benz, slammed into a crowd at a Carnival parade in the German town of Volkmarsen, injuring dozens of people including numerous children, police said.
Eyewitnesses told investigators the motorist, who has been arrested, appeared to deliberately drive into the crowd, a police spokesman told NBC News.
Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.
Between 20 and 30 people were injured, some of them severely, the spokesman said. And many were being treated a makeshift hospital the rescue workers rigged-up in the town’s pharmacy.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that forensic experts were poring over a silver Mercedes station wagon with local license plates that had come to a halt on a sidewalk. The front windshield was smashed, the hood was dented, and its hazard lights were blinking.
Around the car, fragments of Carnival costumes and floats littered the ground.
No motive has been determined, but the incident came less than a week after a man fatally shot 11 people, including himself, in the city of Hanau. It was one of the worst racist attacks in Germany since World War Two.
Police cancelled other Carnival celebrations in the state of Hesse as a precaution.
Volkmarsen, which has a population of about 7,000, is located around 150 miles north of both Frankfurt and Hanau.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.