A search was under way on Saturday in the German city of Solingen after three people were killed and at least eight people wounded, five of them seriously, in a knife attack at a festival.

“The police are currently conducting a large-scale search for the perpetrator,” police said in a statement.

They have assembled a large number of forces around Solingen city centre, including special units. “Both victims and witnesses are currently being questioned,” they said.

Witnesses alerted police shortly after 9.30pm on Friday to an unknown attacker having wounded several people with a knife on a central square, the Fronhof.

Police said that the perpetrator was on the run, and that they so far had only very thin information.

They said they believe the stabbings were carried out by a lone attacker and gave no information about the identities of the victims.

The Festival of Diversity, marking the city’s 650th anniversary, began on Friday and was to run until Sunday, with several stages in central streets offering live music, cabaret and acrobatics.

Solingen has about 160,000 residents and is near the bigger cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday that the attacker must be caught quickly and punished with the full force of the law.

“The attack in Solingen is a terrible event that has shocked me greatly. An attacker has brutally killed several people. I have just spoken to Solingen’s mayor, Tim Kurzbach. We mourn the victims and stand by their families,” Mr Scholz said on X, formerly Twitter.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also spoke to the mayor of Solingen on Saturday morning.

He said in a statement on Saturday: “The heinous act in Solingen shocks me and our country. We mourn those killed and worry about those injured and I wish them strength and a speedy recovery from all my heart.

“The perpetrator needs to be brought to justice. Let’s stand together — against hatred and violence.”

“We are deeply shocked by the brutal attack on the city festival in Solingen,” German interior minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement on Saturday.

“Our security authorities are doing everything they can to catch the perpetrator and establish the background to the attack.”

There has been concern about increased knife violence in Germany, and Ms Faeser recently proposed toughening weapons laws to allow only knives with a blade measuring up to six centimetres to be carried in public, rather than the 12 centimetres that is currently allowed.