Just three days before Christmas, the streets of Glasgow city centre were teeming with excited shoppers and workers finishing off their last couple of days before the festive break.
In a shocking and tragic turn of events during the lunchtime rush, an ‘out-of-control’ bin lorry mounted the pavement on one of Glasgow’s busiest shopping streets, killing six people and seriously injuring 8 others.
According to eye witnesses, the truck drove onto the busy pavements outside the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art, driving towards the busy ‘winter wonderland’ area in George Square.
The truck then crashed into the Millennium Hotel just outside of Queen Street Station.
An eyewitness told BBC news: "I was coming out of a shop and we looked over to the left and we saw this woman screaming and this man on the floor.
"We looked around the road further and we seen this bin lorry just mounting the kerb going left to right just hitting people where they were standing. Such a horrible scene."
Another eyewitness said: I work in George Square and had nipped out for lunch, and was in the queue in Greggs. All of a sudden I heard this screaming and quite a consistent racket.
"I ran out of the store and right directly across from me, I was just watching a very very heavy bin lorry just flatten bodies on the pavement. It was driving along the pavement and taking everything along with it, and then it went across the street.
"Immediately people started calling 999, and started directing traffic.
"There were two bodies right in the centre of the T-junction who were getting CPR mouth-to-mouth and there were some bodies that were so fatally injured that you couldn't really do anything."
The police have confirmed that there is ‘nothing sinister’ about the crash and it was ‘simply a traffic accident’.
Glasgow City Council had planned to turn off the Christmas lights as a mark of respect, but the emergency services ask that they be kept on to aid them in the retrieval of bodies following the crash.
The tragedy comes 12 months on from the Clutha disaster. On one of the busiest nights in the festive calendar (the last pay day before Christmas) a helicopter crashed into a packed pub in Glasgow, leaving 10 people dead and scores of others injured.
The city’s latest incident occurred just a short distance from the tragic Clutha pub.
Following yesterday’s traffic accident, police appealed for those shopping in Glasgow city centre to contact loved ones in order to relieve emergency services, who were inundated with calls asking after family members.