'Torn from my side': Survivors recount horror and carnage

Shocked survivors recounted the moment a car attack on Dec 20 turned a glittering Christmas market in eastern Germany into a scene of death and carnage.

- 

Shocked survivors recounted the moment a car attack on Dec 20 turned a glittering Christmas market in eastern Germany into a scene of death and carnage.

Families were crowded at the market set up around a large Christmas tree in the centre of Magdeburg when a BMW barrelled towards them at around 7pm (2am Singapore time).

"We didn't hear the car," a 32-year-old woman called Nadine told the Bild newspaper, saying she had come from western Germany to visit the famed market in the old town square.

She had been holding her 39-year-old boyfriend Marco in her arms when "he was torn from my side" by the SUV that careened through the crowd for 400m.

"It was terrible," she said.

The screams of the wounded echoed through the panicked crowd, where the car had left a trail of bloodied casualties and debris.