Driver Arrested, Several Critically Injured After Car Ploughs Into Crowd in Helsinki
Three people have been critically injured and several others less severely after a car mounted the pavement in Helsinki, Finland.
The incident, which police say was not deliberate, took place outside a subway station in the eastern part of Finland’s capital. Witnesses saw an Estonian-registered Silver Volvo estate driving at speed before mounting the pavement and hitting several other cars before coming to a stop, reports Finnish newspaper Ilta Sanomat.
A police spokesman told the newspaper “there is nothing presently to suggest the act was intentional”, and that the driver had been taken into custody.
Approximately 10 emergency appliances including fire engines and ambulances attended the scene. An eyewitness told media some of those injured appeared to be in very bad condition.
The crash comes amid heightened concern in Europe over vehicles being used as an attack vector by Islamist killers. 2016 saw the Islamist attacks at the Berlin Christmas market in December and the national day attacks in Nice, France in July. Between the two attacks, 99 were killed.
2016 has also seen the trial of Bosnian Muslim Alen Rizvanović, who drove his car through the central shopping district of Graz, Austria in 2015, killing four. Despite evidence to the contrary, the incident was widely reported as a traffic accident in Austrian media.
This story is developing