DEVELOPING: A man attacked several people with a knife in central London Wednesday evening, killing a woman and injuring five other people in what police described as a possible terror attack.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said officers were called to Russell Square at around 10:30 p.m. local time (5:30 p.m. ET) for a report of an armed man. They found "up to six people injured", including a woman who was pronounced dead.
Related Image
Russell Square is located near the British Museum (bottom left) in central London (SkyNews/Google Earth)
"Terrorism is one possibility being explored at this stage," the statement added.
Authorities said one man was arrested after police deployed a Taser. The conditions of the injured victims were not immediately clear.
The Guardian reported that the Metropolitan Police's counterterror command, including senior counterterror officers, had been brought into the investigation.
Taxi driver Paul Hutchinson told Sky News he saw a body lying in the street opposite the Imperial Hotel, located on the southeaste coer of the square.
"The pavement was all taped off by police," he said. "There was lots of armed police and other police and there was a body on the floor. You could see the boots of the body sticking out where the body was. The body was covered up by a sheet."
"It was a big taped off area and lots of armed police. There were lots of police cars and ambulances."
The stabbing spree came hours after police aounced that an additional 600 armed officers would be deployed across London following recent terror attacks in continental Europe.
Russell Square, located near the British Museum in the Bloomsbury section of London, is close to the site of two of the four terrorist bombings that killed 52 people on July 7, 2005.
Currently, the United Kingdom's terror threat level is set at "severe", meaning an attack is "highly likely". However, since the 2005 bombings, Britain has been spared mass casualty attacks of the type recently seen in Paris, Brussels and Istanbul.
However, earlier this week, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Beard Hogan-Howe waed a terror attack in the U.K. was a case of "when, not if".
Counter-terror police are also probing the attempted abduction last month of a Royal Air Force serviceman at knife-point from a road near a base in easte England.