A local politician has said that an attacker has killed at least 80 people and has injured scores when he drove a truck at high speed into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city of Nice late on Thursday.
The regional government official Sebastien Humbert has told France Info radio that the Police have shot and has killed the driver, who drove the 25 tonne, unmarked truck for well over 100 meters (yards) along the famed Promenade des Anglais seafront, slamming into a mass of spectators late in the evening.
Meanwhile the local newspaper Nice Matin has posted photographs of the truck, its windshield starred by a score of bullets and its radiator grille destroyed. Since Islamic State has attacked last year and major public events in France have been guarded by troops and armed police, but it has appeared to have taken some minutes to halt the progress of the deadly truck in Nice.
The Police have denied rumors on social media of a subsequent hostage-taking and have added that vehicle attacks have been used by isolated members of militant groups in recent years, notably in Israel, as well as in Europe, though never to such devastating effect.
