A lorry was "intentionally" driven into a Christmas market in Berlin, resulting in the deaths of at least 12 people, police believe.
Police have appealed for video and images taken of Breitscheidplatz on Monday night to be sent to them as they try to reconstruct what happened.
Witnesses described the moment of terror when the articulated truck smashed through the popular tourist spot.
A tweet from the Berlin police force said: "Our investigators assume that the truck has been intentionally controlled into the crowd at the Christmas market on the #Breitscheidplatz.
"All police measures on the probable terrorist attack at #Breitscheidplatz are being carried out with high pressure and the necessary care."
Analysis by the Polish owners of the truck found that it appeared to have been started and stopped several times in the afternoon before the 'attack', German media reported.
Der Spiegel, citing Polish website money.pl, said that GPS data showed the lorry's engine was started at 15.44, 16.52 and 17.37.
It finally got under way at 19.34. At around 8pm, the lorry careered into the Christmas market, leaving a dozen dead and injuring a further 48, several seriously.
A man found dead in the lorry's cab was later revealed to be a Polish citizen.
Police said this man, who has not been named, was not the driver when the crash happened.
A second man who escaped from the cab was arrested near the Victory Column, about 2km (1.3 miles) from the Christmas market shortly afterwards, Der Spiegel said.
No details have been released about the man in custody but several German newspapers are reporting that he arrived in German last February as a refugee, either from Pakistan or Afghanistan, with some reports saying he travelled via Passau, in lower Bavaria.
Tagesspiegel claimed the arrested man is a "small criminal" who is known to police, Bild reported.
There were conflicting reports over whether the truck had been stolen with police tweeting they were investigating reports it had been taken from a construction site in Poland but the boss of the firm that owned the truck said it had gone to Berlin with a load of steel beams.
Ariel Żurawski said he was confident the driver who was using the vehicle was not driving at the time of the crash and claimed someone must have hijacked the vehicle and used it to cause carnage.
He told Reuters: "I can vouch for my driver. I see it that they did something to him and hijacked his truck that was practically in Berlin centre... It was not my driver. They simply did something to him, God forbid, so it looks.
"He is my cousin... I have known this man from birth. I can guarantee, it was not our driver who did it. Why would he drive in Berlin centre, if he was waiting for unloading. He was packed with steel, 25 tonnes of it. It would be illogical.
"He has been a driver for 15 years... When I talked to him he said he was in such a district that he saw Germans only in offices. He bought a kebab because he was hungry. We shared some jokes.
"His phone does not answer. A moment ago my wife spoke to his wife. She could not get through to him since 1600 (GMT). Something is wrong. He should have answered, the more so that it was his wife calling."
Several witnesses said the crash appeared not to have been an accident, with one speaking of the vehicle "going through people" and "pulling everything down" as it tore through tables and wooden stands.
Witness Emma Rushton, who had been just several feet from the crash, told Sky News: "It wasn't an accident. It was going at 40mph through the middle of the market.
"There was no way it could have come off the road and it showed no signs of slowing down."
A Syrian refugee who was also visiting the market with friends told Deutsche Welle: "We wanted to have some gluhwein, have some fun, and we heard glass breaking and we saw people shouting, screaming, crying, some people with blood on their faces. It was a truck, it came through the people."
Police said the truck was undergoing forensic examination
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