Australian police have arrested two people after a car drove into a crowd in Melbourne.
The car “collided with a number of pedestrians” on Flinders Street, a busy junction in the centre of the city, said Victoria Police.
The state ambulance service say 13 people have been taken to hospital. Several are in a critical condition.
Police have said it was a deliberate act but it is too early to say whether it was terrorist-related.
They have asked people to avoid the area.
The driver and another man have been detained.
Images from the scene show a number of people lying on the ground close to a large white vehicle.
Victoria Ambulance said in a statement that a child of pre-school age had been taken to hospital with serious head injuries.
One witness told local radio station 3AW the car had “just mowed everybody down, people were flying everywhere”.
Another witness, Lachlan Read, told the Herald Sun the whole incident lasted about 15 seconds.
“He has gone straight through the red light at pace and it was bang, bang, bang. It was just one after the other,” he said of the moment the vehicle started hitting people.
The leader of the Australian opposition, Bill Shorten, tweeted about the “shocking scenes” and praised the emergency services.
In September, a 15-year-old boy dressed in black combat gear was seen driving erratically down nearby Swanston Street.
With BBC report