At least two killed, 60 injured after car ploughs into Magdeburg Christmas market

At least two people have been killed and 60 others injured after a car drove into a crowd at a busy outdoor Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, in what authorities are calling a deliberate attack.

The two people confirmed dead are an adult and a toddler, but officials said additional deaths couldn't be ruled out because 15 people were seriously injured.

The driver was arrested at the scene shortly after the car barrelled into the market at around 7pm local time, when it was teeming with holiday shoppers.

Verified bystander footage published by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect's arrest on a walkway in the middle of the road.

A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone. Other officers soon arrived to take the man into custody.

The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006, Tamara Zieschang, the interior minister for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, said at a news conference.

He has been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometres south of Magdeburg, she said.

"As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city," Saxony-Anhalt's governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters.

"Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many."

The violent incident has shocked the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that's part of a centuries-old German tradition.

It also prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg's loss.

The violence occurred in Magdeburg, a city of about 240,000 people west of Berlin that serves as