By Bill Smith

McClatchy News Service

LONDON — Three serious incidents in central London including a van crashing into pedestrians on London Bridge late Saturday were being treated as a “potential act of terrorism,” Prime Minister Theresa May said.

Armed police opened fire during a stabbing incident at Borough Market after responding to the incident on nearby London Bridge, the Metropolitan Police said.

The BBC quoted officers deployed near London Bridge as saying there was “more than one fatality” and reported that the police were searching for three suspects.

The Metropolitan Police said officers first responded to the London Bridge incident just after 10 p.m., before “armed officers responded and shots have been fired” following reports of stabbings at Borough Market.

“Officers are now responding to an incident in the Vauxhall area,” the force said without giving details.

A taxi driver told London radio station LBC he saw three men get out of a crashed van armed with long knives and then “went randomly along Borough High Street stabbing people at random.”

Peter Walker, a reporter for The Guardian, said on Twitter that he saw many ambulances arriving at King’s College Hospital in south London, with a sign at the emergency entrance declaring a “major incident.”

The newspaper quoted witness Stephen Tull as saying he saw one man jump out of a van on London Bridge and begin attacking people.

BBC reporter Holly Jones, who was on the bridge, said she saw a van driven by a man and “probably traveling at about 50 miles an hour.”

“He swerved right round me and then hit about five or six people,” Jones told the broadcaster.

The London Ambulance Service said it had “multiple resources responding to the incidents.”