Melbourne crash: 16 injured but driver arrested after hitting pedestrians

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 and at least two others are being treated at the scene.

Police have asked people to avoid the area.

They have not said there is any indication the incident is terror-related. The driver and another man have been detained.

The incident happened just after 16:30 local time (5:30 GMT).

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 has 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.