Spanish police used gunfire in an attempt to stop the driver of a stolen truck laden with household gas canisters who was heading in the wrong direction near the city centre on Barcelona’s main ring road.

Police shot at the lorry’s windscreen after a high-speed chase during which some of the gas containers had fallen off the trailer, with one person reported injured by a falling canister.

In total the police said they fired seven times at the lorry, as well as warning shots in the air, but the driver did not stop. At one point, a policeman had to jump out of the way.

“He was driving forward obsessively but he did not aim at pedestrians,” a police spokesperson said.