Photo Courtesy: @ERushton/Twitter
German police said at least nine people were killed and at least 50 people were injured after a truck barreled into a packed Christmas market in Berlin.
It drove straight into the crowd on a sidewalk, bringing down Christmas lights and smashing stalls at the festive market near the Gedaechtniskirche, or Memorial Church, in western Berlin.
The black truck had Polish license plates and dozens of ambulances and hundreds of rescue workers were on the scene, NPR’s Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reported.
A “suspicious person” was arrested nearby, police said, adding that “whether it is the driver of the truck, is currently under consideration.” In a separate tweet, they said that “the passenger of the truck, who drove to the Christmas market … died on the spot.”
Germany’s Federal Prosecutor General has taken charge of the investigation, according to Deutsche Welle. Federal prosecutors “handle terrorism cases,” The Associated Press reported, though authorities have not characterized the incident as an attack.
They have stressed that it could be an accident, Soraya added.
U.S. National Security Council Spokesperson Ned Price said in an statement that the incident “appears to be a terrorist attack.”
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the event.
