Car hits crowd at German carnival leaving several people injured

Several people got injured at a Carnival procession in a German town after a car slammed into the crowd, on Monday, said the police.

The incident happened in Volkmarsen, about 280 kilometers southwest of Berlin. A large number of police have turned up at the scene and the driver apprehended, said Northern Hesse police.

Video from the scene showed a silver Mercedes station wagon with local license plates and its hazard lights blinking on the sidewalk, while emergency crews walked by.

The crash came amid the height of Germany's celebration of Carnival, with the biggest parades in Cologne, Duesseldorf and Mainz.Several cities in western Germany canceled their traditional Carnival parades at short notice on Sunday because of inclement weather.

Volkmarsen, which has a population of 7,000, is east of Duesseldorf, near Kassel.
Police shut down the area to allow emergency crews to deal with the crash. Police said they couldn't immediately provide further details and urged people not to spread "unconfirmed reports" about the crash.

Police say they haven't received any reports of any deaths, and don't have a specific number of injuries yet. They say it is too early to say what caused the car to crash into the crowd.

The regional Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper reported that witnesses said the driver drove around a barrier blocking off traffic from the parade, but that it wasn't yet clear whether he intentionally headed toward the crowd.