Police: Crash at Beijing's Forbidden City kills 3

A sport-utility vehicle veered into a crowd in front of Beijing's Forbidden City and then crashed and caught fire Monday, killing three occupants and injuring tourists and security officers, police said.
     
Several people in the crowd were injured in the crash in front of the iconic Tiananmen Gate around noon, a statement posted on the Beijing police's microblog said.
     
It said the vehicle burst into flames after crashing into one of the ancient stone bridges leading to the gate. No other details were given, and it wasn't clear whether the incident was accidental or deliberate.
     
Traffic along Changan Avenue that runs in front of the gate appeared to be largely uninterrupted, although Beijing's subway announced it was closing the station closest to the gate and one of the exits in the adjacent station.
    
Tiananmen Gate is one of the southern entrances to the former imperial palace and stands across from several lanes of busy traffic from the sprawling Tiananmen Square. It is usually thronged by tourists from China and overseas, raising the possibility that large numbers of people could have been hurt.
    
The area around the square is one of China's most closely guarded and politically sensitive public venues. Just to the west lies the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China's parliament, while many of China's top leaders live and work just a few hundred meters (yards) away in the tightly guarded Zhongnanhai compound.
    
Tiananmen Square is also heavily policed to guard against political protests as occasionally happens on sensitive dates.
    
The square was the focus of a 1989 pro-democracy movement that was violently suppressed by the military.
 

AP