“People were definitely panicking, the rumour we were hearing immediately was that there had been a gas explosion”, he told Sky News.
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Ansbach police said they were alerted to an explosion in the city centre just after 10pm.
Bavarian public broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk reported that 200 police officers and 350 rescue personnel were brought in following the explosion in Ansbach.
Twelve people were injured in Sunday’s blast, the authorities said later.
They said that “a man, according to our current knowledge of the perpetrator, died” in the blast.
A device was exploded by a 27-year-old Syrian national outside a music festival.
As they launched an investigation, local officials said it would be “purely speculation” whether his actions were linked to Islamic extremism. The music festival and surrounding area were evacuated.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in which five people were injured.
Police said the man killed was believed to have been carrying the device that went off near an open-air concert. The 21-year-old Syrian asylum seeker came to Germany one year ago, according to a police statement, and he was known to police for property thefts and assault.
Of the 12 injured, three had serious injuries, said Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann.
After the Munich attack, Herrmann urged the German government to allow the country’s military to be deployed to support police during attacks.
Michael Schrotberger, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in Ansbach, said his motives remained unclear.
Classes include lessons about freedom of opinion, the separation of religion and state and the equality of men and women.
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The spokesman had no immediate information on the cause of the blast, which followed the killing of nine people by an 18-year-old gunman in Munich on Friday.
