(Bloomberg) -- A car crashed into the barriers outside Britain’s Parliament on Tuesday, leaving several pedestrians injured. Police said they had detained the driver.

Television pictures from this incident showed armed police surrounding a white saloon car that had hit heavy barriers outside St Stephen’s Gate, the main public entrance to Parliament. Its bonnet was crumpled and its airbags had been deployed.

“At 0737hrs today, a car was in collision with barriers outside the Houses of Parliament,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Twitter. “The male driver of the car was detained by officers at the scene. A number of pedestrians have been injured. Officers remain at the scene. We will issue further info when we have it.”

Parliament is in recess, and few lawmakers are likely to have been in the building, especially at the time the incident took place.

But the building is one of the world’s major terrorist targets. In March 2017, a man drove a car through pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, before crashing into the fence and attempting to run into the building. He killed four pedestrians and a policeman before he was shot dead.

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.