A suspected terrorist stabbed three people, one of them fatally, in an "evil" daytime attack on a busy street in the center of Melbourne, Australia, authorities said.

The suspect also tried to attack responding police but was shot by officers and later died of his injuries, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told reporters.

The attacker was not publicly identified but had been "a person of interest" to Australian intelligence agencies, Ashton said.

“We are treating this as a terrorism incident,” he said. "At this stage we don’t consider there is any ongoing activity the public need to be concerned about."

Witnesses said the attacker emerged from a pickup which was in flames on Bourke Street during the late afternoon rush hour.

Video posted to social media showed a man repeatedly swinging a knife at police while passersby tried to block his path, one of them using a shopping cart.

A man’s under police guard in hospital after going on a knife attack on Bourke Street this afternoon. @BlakeJohnson #7News pic.twitter.com/V0PzIfoqjs — 7 News Melbourne (@7NewsMelbourne) November 9, 2018

Witness Sean Thomsen told Channel 7 News: “People were yelling ‘It’s a terrorist attack, it’s a terrorist attack.’”

The same street was the scene in January 2017 of another attack, not related to terrorism, in which a man drove his car at pedestrians at high speed, killing six people and wounding about 30.