German officials now say twelve people were killed and 56 were hurt when a truck plowed through a Christmas Market outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the capital Berlin.  An Australian was an eyewitness to what police confirm was a deliberate attack. 

"I never thought I would see something like this in my life," said 24-year old Brisbane native and student Trisha O'Neill to the ABC, describing a traumatic scene of "blood and bodies everywhere".

"All of a sudden there was a big boom and the people in front me jumped on top of me," she said.  "I just saw this huge black truck speeding through the markets crushing so many people and then all the lights went out and everything was destroyed.  I could hear screaming and then we all froze.  Then suddenly people started to move and lift all the wreckage off people, trying to help whoever was there."

One of the dead was a passenger inside the truck - a Scania which was registered in Poland.  Owner Ariel Zurawski confirmed the driver was missing since Monday afternoon:  "We haven't heard from him since this afternoon," said Mr. Zurawski.  "We don't know what happened to him.  He's my cousin, I've known him since I was a kid.  I can vouch for him," he insisted.

Police arrested the alleged driver of the truck about 100 meters away in the Tiergarten attempting to flee the scene.  German media including Die Welt newspaper reported that the driver was a refugee from Pakistan - which prompted ultra-right wing politicians to pounce, blaming it on Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy of welcoming more than a million asylum seekers into the country.

"These are Merkel's dead," tweeted Marcus Pretzell of the increasingly xenophobic Alternative For Germany (AfD) Party, which is looking to make gains in next year's federal elections.  That brought a wave of rebuttals including from Social Democrat vice chairman Ralf Stegner, who called the opportunist comment "unbelievable and disgusting!"