German pensioner crashes car into mall

BERLIN: A German pensioner had a lucky escape on Tuesday after crashing his car into a Hamburg mall, the vehicle ending up precariously balanced on the edge of an atrium -- its front tyres suspended in mid-air.

The 85-year-old man drove the SUV vehicle up a flight of five stairs, smashed into closed glass doors and through the handbag department of a major store in north Hamburg, then breached the glass barriers surrounding the atrium before finally stopping.

"For an unexplained reason, an elderly man drove his SUV through the main entrance of the mall before stopping right on the edge," a spokesman for Hamburg firefighters told AFP. "It could have ended much more dramatically -- 50 centimetres further and the car would have fallen over the edge and we could have expected a lot more injuries," a senior firefighter told German newspaper Bild.