2 dead, several injured after vehicle drives into crowd in Germany

LONDON -- At least two people were killed and several others were injured when a car drove into a crowd in Mannheim, Germany, on Monday, police said.

"According to current findings, a car drove into a group of people in Mannheim city center," police said in a statement. "No information can be given yet on the number and severity of the injuries. As part of the search measures that were immediately initiated, a suspect was identified and arrested. No further, reliable information can currently be released beyond the information published so far."

Police said that all bridges and main roads were under their control. Police also appealed to the public to stay away from the city center.

Video footage from Paradeplatz in the center of Mannheim showed shoppers standing outside an area cordoned off by police tape and strewn with debris, including a shoe. First responders could be seen tending to at least one injured person.

Mannheim has a population of 326,000 and is about 52 miles south of Frankfurt.

Police have not said if the driver under arrest deliberately plowed into the crowd or whether it was accidental.

People were gathering in central Mannheim for an annual German carnival celebration.

Witness Manu Brioso told ABC News that he was taking a class in a building in the Paradeplatz area when he saw the car involved in the incident pass by on the street before it struck a crowd of people.

"The school told us what had happened and that we couldn't leave the school because police had cordoned off the area," Brioso said.

When he was allowed to leave, Brioso said the street was full of police, firefighters and ambulances.

Officials at the Mannheim University Hospital said they received an emergency alert at 12:20 p.m. local time about a possible mass casualty incident in downtown Mannheim and activated the hospital's emergency plan in preparation for treating the injured. The hospital reported receiving many injured patients, both adults and children, including some in critical condition.

The hospital said its intensive care unit was full due to the arrival of a high number of critical patients. According to the hospital, eight trauma teams were treating both adults and children.

As a security precaution, all of the hospital's entrances were closed to the public.

The deadly incident comes in the wake of two intentional car-ramming attacks in Germany and at a time of heightened security across the country.

On Feb. 13, a 24-year-old suspect drove a car into a crowd in Munich gathered for a trade union demonstration, killing a 37-year-old mother and her 2-year-old daughter and injuring 37 people. The suspect, Fahad Noori, who is originally from Afghanistan, purportedly confessed to investigators that the act was deliberate. A prosecutor, Gabriele Tilman, said the suspect "gave an explanation I would summarize as religious motivation."

On Dec. 20, a car-ramming attack occurred at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, that left five people dead and around 200 injured. A 50-year-old Saudi-born man, identified as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, was arrested in the incident, which police suspect was deliberate. Al-Abdulmohsen was charged with five counts of murder and multiple counts of both attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm.

ABC News' Joe Simonetti and Zoe Magee contributed to this report.