Berlin car crash: One dead and several injured as vehicle hits shoppers on crowded street

Man arrested after driving into people but police do not know whether it was deliberate

The car that was driven into a group of people, killing one and injuring a number of others in central Berlin. A police spokeswoman said the driver was detained at the scene after the vehicle had ploughed into a shopfront in a busy street in Charlottenburg. AFP

Emergency crews rush to assist the injured at Tauentzienstrasse near Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. Reuters

The chaotic scene after the incident in the German capital. AP

A rescue helicopter lands on Tauentzienstraße at the site where one person was killed and eight injured when a car drove into a group of people in central Berlin, on June 8, 2022. - A police spokeswoman said the driver was detained at the scene after the car ploughed into a shop front in a busy shopping street in Berlin's Charlottenburg district. It was not clear whether the crash was intentional. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP)

One person was killed and several injured after a car mounted the pavement and smashed into a shop window in Berlin on Wednesday morning.

A man is believed to have driven his car into people on a crowded shopping street, police said, but it was unclear whether he had done so deliberately or had suffered a medical emergency. He was arrested at the scene.

Photos showed the silver Renault lodged in the window of a high-end perfume shop. Police said three people had life-threatening injuries and six were seriously hurt, and one person was confirmed dead.

Police spokesman Thilo Cablitz said the car first hit a group of people on a street corner, before veering off the road a short distance later and ending up in the shop window. He said investigators were trying to reconstruct what happened.

The driver, a 29-year-old German-Armenian living in Berlin, was initially restrained by passers-by before being arrested by police, said Mr Cablitz. The silver Clio had a Berlin number plate.

The crash took place close to the site of a 2016 terrorist attack, Germany's worst in modern times, when a lorry drove into Christmas shoppers and killed 12. The attacker Anis Amri was later shot dead in Italy.

Four people were killed in a 2019 incident in Berlin when a driver suffered a seizure and drove his sports vehicle on to the pavement.

About 130 emergency workers were at the scene on Wednesday in one of Berlin's main shopping districts. A police helicopter landed in the road while rescuers treated the victims.

A witness to the aftermath was actor John Barrowman, who was unhurt but shaken after hearing “the bang and the crash … we came out and we just saw the carnage”.

An emotional Mr Barrowman told Sky News: “These people were just having breakfast at a cafe, it's just awful.”

He said he saw a body lying in the middle of the street, part of what was once the glitzy commercial hub of West Berlin and close to one of the city's best-known landmarks, the war-ravaged Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey visited the scene and said she was "deeply shocked... the police are working at full speed to clear up what happened".

A rescue helicopter landed at the scene after the car crash. AFP