A man drove a car into a crowd of people watching a Carnival procession in a small German town of Volkmarsen, Monday, injuring dozens including children, police said.

"Unfortunately, we cannot rule out that it was done with intent," Reiner Linger, police spokesman for the nearby city of Kassel, told German station, Welt TV. 

"There were several dozen injured, among them some seriously and sadly also children," another police spokesman Henning Hinn said. Some of the injuries were life-threatening, he said. 

Video from the scene showed a silver Mercedes station wagon with local license plates and its hazard lights blinking on a sidewalk. The crash occurred on the south side of the town, outside a supermarket. 

Police shut down the area to allow emergency crews to deal with the crash. Police said they couldn't immediately provide further details and urged people not to spread "unconfirmed reports" about the crash. 

The incident came amid the height of Germany's celebration of Carnival, with the biggest parades in Cologne, Duesseldorf and Mainz. 

Police in Western Hesse state tweeted that all other Carnival parades in the region Monday were cancelled following the crash.