In what has been labeled as a terror attack, a driver deliberately rammed a van into a crowd on Barcelona’s most popular street on Thursday, killing at least two people before fleeing to a nearby bar, police said.

Officers in Spain’s second-largest city said one suspect had left the scene and was “holed up in a bar”.

A local security source told AFP that at least two people had died in the van attack and around 20 were wounded.

The police source said they were hunting for a total of two suspects.

The famous Las Ramblas boulevard is one of Barcelona’s busiest streets, normally thronged with tourists and street performers until well into the night.

“Huge collision on Las Ramblas in Barcelona by an individual driving a van, many injuries,” a police statement said.

The area around the incident was cordoned off, with several ambulances and police vehicles on the scene, an AFP correspondent said.

“Don’t go near the affected zone,” Catalan police tweeted.

Witness Aamer Anwar told Britain’s Sky News television that he was walking down Las Ramblas, which he described as “jam-packed” with tourists, when the attack happened.

“All of a sudden, I just sort of heard a crashing noise and the whole street just started to run, screaming. I saw a woman right next to me screaming for her kids.

“Police were very, very quickly there, police officers with guns, batons, everywhere. Then the whole street started getting pushed back.”

Vehicles have been used in several terror attacks in Europe in recent years, including a jihadist massacre that claimed 86 lives in the French Riviera city of Nice.

Spain had so far been spared the kind of extremist violence that rocked nearby France, Belgium and Germany.