Multiple dead and injured as driver plows into Vancouver crowd, police say

Multiple people were killed and injured when a driver plowed into a crowd at a street festival in Vancouver, Canada, Saturday night, police said.

The driver was in custody following the crash on East 41st Ave. and Fraser Street shortly after 8:14 p.m. local time, the Vancouver Police Department said in a post on X.

Police did not immediately provide a number of victims or a possible motive, but have identified the suspect as a 30-year-old man from Vancouver.

The site of the crash is near the posted location of the Lapu-Lapu Day block party, a celebration of Filipino culture.

Yoseb Vardeh, the co-owner of a food truck that was stationed at the festival, told the Vancouver Sun, a Canadian news outlet, that he heard an engine revving before a speeding truck drove straight down the middle of a pedestrian-only area flanked by food trucks and people on both sides.

“I got outside my food truck, I looked down the road and there’s just bodies everywhere,” Vardeh said.

He added that the police had acted quickly to cordon off the area and arrest the man. “This is something that happens in the States, not here,” he said.

Deana Lancaster, a spokesperson for Vancouver General Hospital, the region’s top trauma facility, said it was receiving multiple patients from the incident, which she understood to be the Lapu-Lapu Day party.

“I am shocked and deeply saddened by the horrific incident at today’s Lapu Lapu Day event,” Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said, adding that more information would be forthcoming as soon as it is available.

“Our thoughts are with all those affected and with Vancouver’s Filipino community during this incredibly difficult time,” Sim said.

British Columbia Premier David Eby said his team was in contact with Vancouver officials and would provide any needed support.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered condolences on X and said officials were monitoring the situation.

“I offer my deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver. We are all mourning with you,” he said.

Jagmeet Singh, the leader of Canada’s New Democrat Party, said on X that he was “horrified.”

“As we wait to learn more, our thoughts are with the victims and their families — and Vancouver’s Filipino community, who were coming together today to celebrate resilience,” he said.

In 2023, the province of British Columbia officially declared April 27 as Lapu Lapu Day, commemorating a battle on the island of Mactan, in what is now the Philippines, on April 27, 1521. Lapu-Lapu was an indigenous leader who is widely credited, and celebrated, in the Philippines for killing Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer who landed in Mactan while helming a Spanish expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

The islands went on to fall under Spanish colonial rule for nearly 400 years, and Lapu Lapu is hailed as an early hero in the Philippines and the global Filipino diaspora as a symbol of resistance to colonialism.

There are nearly 1 million people with Filipino heritage in Canada, according to the 2021 Census.