A massive truck ignored a red light in the town of Furth, near Nuremberg, and hit a car in the intersection before ramming into at least 34 parked vehicles at full speed on a 500-meter stretch of road.
Several cars were badly damaged and caught fire. The out-of-control lorry was also in flames, with the blaze later spreading to a residential building and prompting an evacuation of residents.
Three people ended up being injured in the crash, including the lorry driver, the man behind the wheel of the car he hit first, and a pedestrian.
“It looks like a battlefield,” a police spokesman told Bild, describing the scene of the accident.
The driver of the truck had been detained by the officers on site. He was described as a 50-year-old male from Turkey with no residence permit in Germany.
The man’s breath test revealed that he had been several times above the legal alcohol limit for driving.
The police are now trying to determine if intoxication was the sole reason for the incident or if the driver had some other motives.