At least seven people were injured on Saturday when a Moscow taxi driver apparently lost control of his car near Red Square on the third day of the World Cup in Russia.
Security camera footage distributed on social media showed the yellow cab turning right as it tried to pass some standing traffic on a one-way street.
It accelerated as it reached the crowded pavement and drove a few meters before hitting a traffic sign and coming to a sharp halt.
Two passersby immediately tried to confront the driver by trying to jam open his door.
The driver eventually jumped out and began running away. The clip ended with the crowd chasing the man down a side street.
Moscow city authorities identified the driver as a 28-year-old national of the central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan and took him into police custody for questioning.
“According to preliminary information, seven people requested medical assistance,” the Moscow Police said in a statement. “The preliminary cause of the accident is that the driver lost control of the vehicle.”
The driver was quoted as telling the police that he had been working for more than two days straight driving World Cup tourists and had accidentally stepped on the gas.
The incident occurred about 200m from Red Square, with Moscow packed with foreign football fans snapping pictures of the Kremlin.
ITAR-TASS and other Russian news agencies later quoted the Moscow health department as saying that eight people were hurt.
“Seven of them are in satisfactory condition and one woman is in moderate condition,” an unidentified Moscow health department official was quoted as saying.
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