Nine people have been injured, three seriously, after a car drove into a group of people in the village of Nunspeet in Gelderland during a winter parade.

The injured people were among the crowds who had turned out to watch a procession of lorries decorated with lights, which takes place ahead of the Christmas holidays every year.

Police say that the accident does not appear to have been deliberate but that their investigation is continuing.

“There were a lot of people on and around the roundabout and along the side of the road,” photographer Armin de Breij, who was at the scene, told the AD. “The car seems to have come from a side road, and drove diagonally across the roundabout through the crowd, hit a fence and ended up in a field.”

The driver was a local woman, aged 56, the paper said. She was slightly injured.

The emergency services turned out in force and several air ambulances were called in to ferry the injured to hospital.