A vehicle drove into a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg in central Germany on Friday evening, wounding dozens of people, in what local officials said they suspected was an attack, according to videos online and the German public broadcaster.
The driver of the vehicle was arrested, according to local news reports.
A regional government spokesman, Matthias Schuppe, and a city spokesman, Michael Reif, said they suspected the ramming had been an attack, according to the German public broadcaster.
“This is a terrible event, especially now in the days leading up to Christmas,” Reiner Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt state, where Magdeburg is the capital, told the German wire service D.P.A.
The police could not immediately confirm the number of victims at the market in Magdeburg, but many officers were at the site. The area around the market was also closed, a police spokeswoman said.
More than 1,000 temporary Christmas markets pop up every year in Germany, and they have been the target of terrorists in the past. In 2016, an extremist rammed a truck into a crowd in Berlin, killing 13.
Surveillance footage from Magdeburg that was circulated on social media and verified by The New York Times shows a car plowing into a large crowd at the Christmas market. The car then turns right onto another crowded street. Video of the aftermath shows people helping the wounded as cries are heard.
“The reports from Magdeburg are alarming,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in social media post. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
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