Less than 12 hours after a speeding car ploughed through crowds crossing the street outside, Melbourne’s Flinders Street station was open for business like nothing ever happened.
The iconic train station’s doors were back open at the usual time of 4.30am on Friday and services for each line resumed according to normal timetables.
Commuters were seen bustling across the busy intersection of Flinders Street and Elizabeth Street where at 4.40pm on Thursday a white Suzuki Vitara slammed against a tram stop bollard.
Less than 12 hours after a speeding car ploughed through crowds crossing the street outside, Melbourne’s Flinders Street station was open for business like nothing ever happened
Commuters were seen bustling across the busy intersection of Flinders Street and Elizabeth Street where at 4.40pm on Thursday the white Suzuki Vitara slammed into a tram stop bollard
Minutes earlier it had mowed down 17 people as it sped through crowds of Christmas shoppers and workers just trying to get home on the second last day before festive holidays.
By morning the wreckage was cleared away, the injured in hospital, and an orange plastic mesh wrapped around the tram stop that finally halted the speeding car’s rampage.
There was, however, a heavy police presence with dozens of uniformed officers wearing high-vis vests standing watch to maintain security.
Melburnians appeared to be answering the call of Premier Kevin Andrews who urged residents to not let the ‘act of evil’ deter them from going about their business.
‘I encourage people to go about your business, enjoy what should be and I’m sure will be … a time for family and friends coming to Christmas Day and indeed the aftermath of that,’ he said on Thursday night.
By morning the wreckage was cleared away, the injured in hospital, and an orange plastic mesh wrapped around the tram stop that finally halted the speeding car’s rampage
The bent out of shape bollard that stopped the speeding car was removed and the hole filled with gravel
The iconic train station told Daily Mail Australia its doors were back open at the usual time of 4.30am on Friday and services for each line resumed according to normal timetables
Melburnians appeared to be answering the call of Premier Kevin Andrews who urged residents to not let the ‘act of evil’ deter them from going about their business
‘At a time of year when so many families are celebrating the end of the year, doing Christmas shopping and making plans for what ought to be a festive season, we’ve seen a horrific act, an evil act, an act of cowardice.
‘We are all caught up in this. Strangers came to the aid of people they had never met before, so did police.’
Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton echoed Mr Andrews’ call, with the city to host Carols by Candlelight on Christmas Eve and a Big Bash cricket match on Saturday night.
‘We ask the public — you should come in, you should continue to come in and enjoy yourselves,’ he said.
‘We have to be strong and we have to continue on as a community, we are asking everyone to continue, to come in, go to the carols, go to the cricket, continue to enjoy yourselves, we are providing every level of assurance which we can.’
Nineteen people were injured in the incident, including the driver and an off-duty policeman who heroic wrestled him from the car where other officers arrested him
Paramedics at the scene were holding up tarps around the injured (pictured) who lay on the tram tracks of the busy street
Two men were arrested at the scene after the white SUV (pictured) crashed into a bollard at Flinders Street Station
Nineteen people were injured in the incident, including the driver and an off-duty policeman who heroic wrestled him from the car where other officers arrested him.
Many more could have been injured or killed if the car hadn’t crashed into a tram stop bollard on Flinders Street and the intersection of Elizabether Street.
By midday on Friday 12 people were still in hospital with only one, an 80-year-old man, still in critical condition.
Five men, aged 25, 40, 43, 45 and 83 and six women, aged 25, 30, 35, 47 and 58, were among the victims and along with another three men and two women of unknown age.
Many were from overseas including citizens of South Korea, China, Italy, India, Venezuela, Ireland and New Zealand.
There was, however, a heavy police presence with dozens of uniformed officers wearing high-vis vests standing watch to maintain security
Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton echoed Mr Andrews’ call, with the city to host Carols by Candlelight on Christmas Eve and a Big Bash cricket match on Saturday night
Saeed Noori, 32, the driver behind the wheel of the SUV with P-plates, arrived in Australia as a refugee in 2004 through a resettlement program.
‘He came to Australia as a refugee. He did not come with a people smuggler, he came through the appropriate refugee, the normal refugee programs,’ Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.
Speaking briefly to investigators on Thursday night as he lay in a hospital bed at St Vincent’s under police guard, the 32-year-old made a ‘number of utterances’ and ‘spoke about dreams and voices’.
‘But he also did attribute some of his actions to the poor treatment of Muslims,’ Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said on Friday morning.
Commissioner Patton said Noori had a history of drug use and mental illness, stressing that investigators had not yet found any extremist or terrorist links to the horror rampage.
Noori was released from hospital on Friday afternoon and taken to Melbourne Police Station where detectives hope to formally interview him and potentially lay charges after that.
Half a dozen police officers huddle during operations to make the streets outside the station safe the morning after
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