A truck has crashed into a crowd gathered for France’s Bastille Day fireworks on the seafront of the southern city of Nice, French media have reported.
The sub-prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, Sébastien Humbert, told French rolling news channel BFM TV: “The death toll is extremely high.”
He spoke of “maybe 30 dead in Nice” and 100 injured. He said a truck had ploughed into a crowd over a long distance on the beachfront Promenade des Anglais “which explains the extremely high toll”.
He added that there had been an exchange of gunfire and the truck driver had been killed. He described it as “a criminal event”. He told residents to avoid the centre of Nice.
“People are running, it’s panic,” a local newspaper journalist from Nice-Matin was reported saying. “There is blood, no doubt injuries.”
Security forces and ambulances raced to the scene, and authorities from the local Alpes-Maritimes prefecture urged residents to stay indoors.
A reporter for the French news agency AFP described seeing a white vehicle driving at high speed on to the Promenade des Anglais as people were leaving after the annual Bastille Day celebration display.
“We saw people hit and bits of debris flying around,” he said, adding that the incident took place near the Hotel Negresco.
Terrified pedestrians screamed as they fled the area. “It was absolute chaos,” he said.
A huge security cordon was established, closing off the central Place Massena by 2330 GMT, another AFP added.
President of the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Christian Estrosi, tweeted that a “truck-driver appeared to have killed dozens of people”. He told Nice residents: “Stay at home”.
The French environment minister Ségolène Royal tweeted her “distress and saddened solidarity with the victims in Nice and all the peope of Nice”.