The driver, a 29-year-old German-Armenian man living in Berlin, was detained by police following the crash on Wednesday morning shortly before 10.30am. 

According to reports, the silver Renault Clio first rammed into a crowd at the corner of Tauentzienstraße and Rankestraße, before returning to the road and then slamming into the window of a Douglas perfume and make-up store on Marburger Straße, about 150 metres away.

A group of school students on a class trip from Hesse were hit, and their teacher died. Several people from the group were injured, some with life-threatening injuries. 

READ ALSO: Teacher dead and school pupils injured in Berlin after car drives into crowd

Police haven’t said whether the crash was intentional. On Thursday they said their investigations were continuing. 

Berlin interior minister Iris Spranger said that “according to latest information” the attack seemed to have been “committed by someone suffering from psychological problems”.

People gathered in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Gedächtniskirche) on Wednesday evening to pay tribute to the victims of the crash. 

Witnesses described how the car mounted the pavement. 

A 58-year-old man from the Philippines said he was walking on Kurfürstendamm on his way to work when he was almost caught by the car after it veered off the road and into pedestrians.

He told The Local how he saw the car drive into a crowd of people, and heard shouts and screams as people were knocked out of the way.

“Thank God I was walking on the side of the pavement and not in the middle,” he said.

“Otherwise I could be in hospital now. Of course I feel very sad and I’m in shock.”

A large area near the Gedächtniskirche (memorial church) was closed to the public as police carried out investigations. 

There was a quiet mood in the afternoon, with lots of people standing around in shock. 

Close to Berlin Zoo, the area in Breidscheidplatz is usually packed with people, especially shoppers and tourists. 

Dozens of police vans as well as fire and rescue vehicles were parked on the roads. 

Frank Vittchen, a witness at the scene, told AFP he was sitting at a fountain nearby when he “heard a big crash and then also saw a person fly through the air”.

The vehicle drove “at high speed onto the pavement and didn’t brake”, he said, with its windows shattering from the impact.

“It all happened so fast,” he said.

A waiter from a restaurant near the crash scene told the Berliner Zeitung how a car travelling at high speed rammed into people, and “bodies just flew through the air”.

The waiter said he ran to help the victims.

Another witness, who declined to be named, said the people hit by the car included a group of 15-16 year olds, and that two teachers were among those injured.

British-American actor John Barrowman, who was near the street at the time, said on Twitter: “I heard the bang and the crash when we were in a store and then we came out and we just saw the carnage,” he said.

‘I thought someone had been shot’

Outside the police cordon, most shops remained open.

A 30-year-old security guard who was working at a store directly across the road from where the crash happened, told The Local: “I heard the glass smash in the shop across the street.

“I thought someone had been shot. But then my boss told me that it was a driver who had driven down the pavement.

“The police were there in about five minutes. There were lots of people just standing around watching.”

The crash happened close to Breitscheidplatz – where an Islamic State group sympathiser ploughed a truck through a Christmas market in 2016, killing 12 people. In the wake of the attack, authorities implemented security measures in the area.

“There is still a gaping wound in the heart of this city,” said police spokesman Thilo Cablitz after updating reporters on the car crash on Wednesday. 

Many are feeling anxious after the latest incident.

The security guard said: “It’s terrible. It’s really scary. How are mothers and small kids supposed to walk on the street now when things like that happen?”

A worker at a nearby book shop said: “Me and all my colleagues are in shock. We didn’t see it with our own eyes but we all started getting messages from our friends and family asking if we were okay.”

Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey said she was “deeply affected by the incident” and planned to go to the scene. 

A German government spokeswoman said the government was “very concerned and shocked” by the “terrible incident in Berlin” adding that their thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.

With reporting from AFP and Rachel Loxton