A truck plowed into pedestrians during Bastille Day celebrations in the popular French seaside city of Nice, leaving at least 60 people dead, officials said. Broadcaster i-Tele quoted the prosecutor's office as saying the preliminary death toll was 60. The president of the Nice region, Eric Ciotti, said on French radio 60 people were killed. Nice's former mayor and a city official, Christian Estrosi said there appeared to be dozens of deaths. He later said there were 70 "victims."
A spokesperson for France's Interior Ministry said on Twitter: "The individual who was driving the truck was neutralized. Investigation will determine if he was acting alone."The truck struck the crowd at around 10:40 p.m. local time (4:30 p.m. ET) shortly after a fireworks display. "White truck literally racing through crowds of all ages. People either caught in path or forced to jump onto rocks over beach barrier," witness Andrew Botros, an Edinburgh man who owns a holiday apartment in Nice, told NBC News in a Twitter message. "Some dead. Horrific," Botros said.
A senior U.S. military source told NBC News that French authorities are reporting that the truck "purposefully" and "maliciously" struck the crowd. French President Francois Hollande and the country's interior minister were holding a crisis meeting over the situation. The Interior Ministry said a catastrophe and disaster response plan was being implemented. U.S. President Barack Obama has been briefed on the situation, National Security Council spokesperson said. Witnesses described the chaos after the truck hit the crowd.
"I looked up and saw, like, a tsunami wave of people just running towards me as fast as they possibly could screaming at the top of their lungs," Dr. Kevin Motamedi, a Denver physician on a tour of Europe, told NBC News."And I just grabbed who I was with and started running as fast as possible. It was basically just complete mass hysteria. We heard some explosions, too, maybe gunfire," he said.
"It was the scariest moment of my life, easily," Motamedi said. "As we were running, you could tell the people in front of us had no idea that anything was going on, so we were running and grabbing people saying, 'Run. Go home!'" Eric Dratell, an American lawyer working in London, is in Nice on vacation with his wife. They were having dinner at Le Sporting on the beach when his wife heard what she thought was gunfire. "We started running for cover. People started jumping from promenade level onto the beach," Dratell told NBC News. "A guy jumped on my wife," who was injured, he said.
"We took shelter with 200 or more people in an area under the promenade. People were in crowded toilet stalls," Dratell said. "This is shocking," he said. Following the incident, Nice's former mayor Christian Estrosi tweeted in French, "Dear Nicois, the driver of a truck appears to have made a dozens of deaths. For the moment, stay in your home. More info to come." France has been on edge since a series of coordinated terror attacks in Paris in November that left 130 people dead. The terror group ISIS claimed responsibility for that attack.
Malcolm Nance, executive director of the Terror Asymmetrics Project, a nonprofit research institute, told NBC News that while it couldn't immediately be determined for certain, the incident bore all the hallmarks of a "major terror attack." Vehicular traffic is barred from the promenade on holidays, meaning the driver of the truck would have had to negotiate several roadblocks to reach the area, said Nance, a former veteran federal counter terrorism officer.
France's ambassador to the U.S., Gérard Araud, said on Twitter: "Again. Sadness. These people only wanted to enjoy Bastille day fireworks with their family and friends. Sadness." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: "Canadians are shocked by tonight's attack in Nice. Our sympathy is with the victims, and our solidarity is with the French people."
Nice is a city on France's Mediterranean coast popular with tourists. The U.S. State Department said it has no Thursday evening it had no information that any Americans were killed or injured. Bastille Day, also known as National Day, commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison during the French revolution in 1789.
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