Police are reporting that a van has hit a number of pedestrians who were walking on London Bridge this evening.
Witnesses described armed officers at the scene after a white transit van went onto the sidewalk before driving into passersby.
Transport division of London has said the bridge is currently closed due to a “major police incident.”
Bus routes are being diverted and a BBC reporter on the scene, Holly Jones, said the van was being driven “at about 50 miles an hour.”
We are dealing with an incident on #LondonBridge, when we have more information we will update this twitter feed.
— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) June 3, 2017
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, tweeted to follow Metro Police for more information and the Metro Police say they will update their twitter when more information is available.
One witness, Mark Roberts, has told CNN that a van came swerving down the road at a high rate of speed and hit several people. One person is described to having been launched “about 20 feet into the air.” He went on to say, “Within my line of sight, there were five or six people on the ground that were not moving. It looked to me that the van was aiming at the people.”
Roberts also told CNN that he heard what sounded like gunshots a brief moment later, but this is has not been confirmed.
Authorities are warning people to avoid the area according to The Standard.
Will Heaven, a witness who was in an Uber near the bridge at the time, told Sky News that “It was about 10 past 10. I was in the back of an Uber cab driving south over London Bridge. Suddenly on the left hand side of the bridge there was somebody down on the pavement with a small crowd around them, clearly concerned. I thought someone had collapsed. We drove a little further over the bridge. There was another person in the road itself. The penny dropped that something quite serious was happening.” He added, “A driver of a black cab said there has been a terrorist attack. They saw there were numerous people in the road. A second cab driver said there has been a series of stabbings.”
England recently experienced a terror attack on May 22 when a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert.