Carnage on a "blockbuster movie" scale ensued when a 13-year-old boy stole a bus and went on a joyride in downtown Beijing.
Beijing Public Transport Holdings said the unnamed schoolboy seems to have hotwired the bus while the driver was answering a call of nature, according to state news agency Xinhua.
The incident took place at around 9am on Sunday, when the boy took the bus on a zigzagging trip through the busy streets of the Chinese capital, before ploughing into a minibus and a car.
And when the car driver got out, the boy reversed the bus, hitting another ten parked cars in the process, according to Beijing Public Security Bureau.
Even though one car was shunted through the window of a clinic and two electricity poles were knocked over, no-one was injured, and three witnesses apprehended the boy after kicking in the door.
Nevertheless, some bystanders were left shaken by the episode - described by one man in terms befitting a supernatural experience.
Liu, who runs a shoe repair stand by the parked cars, said he ran for his life when the bus bore down on him like a "dancing dragon".
"It was like watching a blockbuster movie when I saw the bus crashing into cars like a bulldozer," he said.
Xinhua notes that the episode echoes a similar bus theft in December 2008, when a 13-year-old schoolboy was stopped by police after a two-hour joyride.
