Chainsaw attacker wounds 5 in Swiss town, police launch manhunt

The police say they have identified the attacker.

A man armed with a chainsaw wounded at least five people, two of them seriously, on Monday in a small Swiss town that was then put into lockdown as police hunted for the suspect.

Swiss police are seen in the old quarter of Schaffhausen, northern Switzerland on July 24, 2017, after a man armed with a chainsaw injured at least five people in an attack. (AFP)

Police said the attack was “not an act of terror”. They said they had identified the attacker, but did not name him, describing him in a statement appealing for help from the public as bald, unkempt and around 190 cm (six feet three inches) tall.

The attack happened inside an office building on a shopping street in the centre of Schaffhausen, a medieval town of 36,000 inhabitants on the German border, police said.

Map locating the Swiss town of Schaffhausen, where a man armed with a chainsaw injured at least five people. (AFP)

Police cordoned off the area and ordered people to leave, Swiss newspaper Blick said. Witnesses saw bleeding victims being treated by rescue crews, it reported.

Helicopter ambulances were on the scene.