18 injured after van slams into sidewalk outside Starbucks

Eighteen people were injured in Shanghai on Friday morning after an out-of-control van in flames slammed into a sidewalk outside of a Starbucks on West Nanjing Road near People’s Park.

The van was driven by a 40-year-old man surnamed Chen who works at a local metal products company. According to a statement from Shanghai police, Chen was smoking and driving while illegally transporting flammable material — reported to be a number of gas canisters.

An initial investigation found that Chen’s smoking started the fire, causing him to lose control of his vehicle and plow into pedestrians at around 9 am, police said.

The flames inside the vehicle were quickly put out by firefighters. While three people were seriously injured in the crash, none of the injuries sustained are life-threatening.

Video has gone viral on WeChat of the aftermath of the crash, showing firefighters working to extinguish the flaming van and victims sprawled out on the sidewalk.

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=g05447s2myj&width=500&height=375&auto=0

We will update this post as more information becomes available, but at this time it appears unlikely that this crash was a terrorist attack.

[Images via NetEase]

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