AT LEAST 10 people were killed when a man drove a van into a crowd of pedestrians in Toronto yesterday.

A further 15 people were injured in the attack in Canada’s biggest city.

Here are the main facts known so far, in what the government is calling a deliberate attack:

The path

At 1.26pm local time (5.26pm Irish time), police received an emergency call reporting that pedestrians had been hit on busy Yonge Street in the centre of Toronto.

A white rented van sped along the street and the footpath at lunchtime for about one kilometre, police chief Mark Saunders said.

At 1.52pm, a man was arrested near where the van had been left, with its front bumper dented.

The toll

Police first said that eight to 10 pedestrians had been hit. They later said the death toll was 10, with another 15 people injured, including some in serious or critical conditions.

Over a stretch of several hundred metres, the bodies of those who died were covered by orange sheets yesterday.

The driver

Police identified the van driver as 25-year-old Alek Minassian, who is from a Toronto suburb. Police have said they hope their interrogation of him will reveal his motive. He has no police record.

At the time of his arrest, he was holding some kind of object in his left hand as police squared off with him, according to photos seen on social media.

Definitely ‘deliberate’

Police handcuffed Minassian while he was on the ground.

“The actions definitely looked deliberate,” Saunders told journalists.

Ralph Goodale, Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, added that “on the basis of all available information at the present time, there would appear to be no national security connection to this particular incident”.

- © AFP 2018