A gunman wounded two people at Rio de Janeiro's main bus station Tuesday and held 16 passengers hostage for three hours before being convinced to surrender, police said.

There were scenes of panic as gunshots rang out in the afternoon at the Novo Rio station through which some 38,000 people pass daily, with buses headed for all regions of Brazil.

Witnesses said a man opened fire before boarding the bus, where he took hostage 16 people, including a child and six elderly persons, for reasons police have not disclosed.

An earlier police tally had a total of 17 hostages.

A 34-year-old man was shot in the chest and abdomen and was in a serious condition in hospital, said Rio health secretary Daniel Soranz.

A second person, also hospitalized, was less severely injured.

"The hostage-taker surrendered, he was arrested, all the hostages were released, they are safe," Colonel Marco Andrade of the military police announced about three hours after the crisis began.

The surrender came after agents from the elite Special Operations Battalion were deployed to the scene to conduct negotiations, according to police.

Officers had cordoned off the station after evacuating all employees and passengers, who crowded in the hundreds outside while police tried to reason with the gunman.

Images broadcast by the Globo news channel showed agents escorting a man in a colorful pink T-shirt, green Bermuda shorts and short hair towards a police van after the incident as passengers exited the bus, including a young woman with a baby in her arms.

The hostage-taker's identity has not been revealed, but Rio military police secretary Luiz Henrique Marinho said it appeared he had been trying to "flee" the city over "problems in his faction," in apparent reference to a criminal gang.

"At some point he felt threatened by someone, a person or a group, on the bus, and that's when he fired the shots," Marinho told Globo.

On social network X, Rio state Governor Claudio Castro praised the "exemplary" action of police in bringing the drama to a close.

'Everyone is desperate'

Televised images showed chaotic scenes at the station as fearful passengers scattered and a blue bus remained stationary in the middle of an empty parking lot. 

"A man drew a gun, started shooting and entered the bus. I have two friends on this bus, everyone is desperate, we don't know what will happen," one witness told Globo ahead of the passengers' release.

Bus hijackings are not unknown in Rio.

In 2019 a hijacker armed with what turned out to be a fake gun held bus passengers hostage on a bridge outside the city for nearly four hours before being shot dead by police snipers.

In 2011, a similar incident left three people injured in the heart of Brazil's most iconic city, long plagued by high crime rates linked to poverty and inequality.

And in 2000, a hostage-taker and a captive were killed in another bus hijacking that was broadcast live to a rapt audience and inspired the 2008 movie "Last Stop 174." 

Rio's sprawling favelas, which crowd the metropolitan area's hillsides, often overlooking picture-postcard beaches and lush mountains, are the epicenter of gang and drug-related violence.