One dead and 10 injured after car drives into crowd in Tokyo

At least one person has died and 10 others were injured after a car ploughed into a crowd in central Tokyo on Monday.

Around a dozen people were struck in the city’s Adachi Ward at around 12.30pm before the driver tried to flee on foot. An elderly pedestrian, believed to be in his 80s, died at the scene.

A woman in her 20s was found seriously injured and unconscious and was rushed to hospital, where she remains, The Mirror reported.

Tokyo police chased down the suspect around 500 metres from the scene, and the man has now been arrested.

Officers are investigating the incident as a hit-and-run and are also looking into whether a vehicle theft from a nearby car dealership, reported two hours before the crash, is linked.

The incident follows another crash in Japan in which a car struck a crowd of students leaving school, leaving at least seven injured. In that case, 28-year-old Yazawa Yuki was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

He reportedly told authorities: “I was fed up with everything, so I tried to kill someone, and ran over several elementary school students with my car.”

Enquiries into Monday’s crash are ongoing.