Afrasianet - A white Ryder rental van killed nine people and injured 16 when its driver plowed through a busy Toronto sidewalk on a sunny Monday afternoon, police said.

Toronto Deputy Chief Peter Yuen provided the casualty toll at a news conference.

The incident occurred just before 1:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) as large crowds of office workers were on lunch breaks. At least one witness described the driver as appearing to deliberately target victims on his roughly mile-long (1.6 km-long) rampage.

The driver was in custody, police said.

A Reuters witness said there were at least two bodies at the site of the incident. At least seven people were brought to nearby Sunnybrook Health Services Centre’s trauma center, the hospital said on Twitter.

It was not immediately clear if the incident was a deliberate act by the driver or a traffic mishap in a mixed commercial and residential area.