(Photo: Xinhua)

BERLIN, Feb. 29 (Xinhua) -- An 81-year-old woman drove into a crowd at a tram stop in Essen in western Germany Saturday evening, injuring 11 people including three in critical condition, local media quoted a police spokesperson as saying.

The local media, das Bild, reported that a BMW drove into a tram stop in Essen and hit a group of people who had get off the tram, police spokesman Christoph Wickhorst was quoted as saying.

The driver was also injured and was sent into hospital later. It is still unclear whether the driver missed the traffic light or the traffic light was defective or what else led to the accident, the report said.

According to the newspaper Westdeutsche Zeitung, three people got life-threatening injuries, four seriously injured, and five people with minor injuries. The police were recording testimonies about what happened from a large number of people on site.