Thirty-five people were killed after a Chinese driver rammed his car into a crowd in southern China, the nation’s deadliest attack in at least a decade as an economic slowdown sparks outbreaks of violence.
A man surnamed Fan drove his small jeep into pedestrians outside a sports center in the city of Zhuhai at around 7:48 p.m. on Monday, state broadcaster China Central Television reported late Tuesday. Police attributed the rampage to the 62-year-old attacker’s unhappiness over his divorce settlement, suggesting there was a property dispute.
Videos shared on social media platform X, which is banned in China, showed a car driving around the stadium, where people were exercising. Victims were seen strewn on the ground, while others tried to flee the scene.
More than 40 people were injured and taken to hospital, police said in the statement.
The death toll from the incident is the country’s largest since a string of terrorism attacks in Xinjiang in 2014, including one in Yarkant county where 37 civilians were killed. President Xi Jinping responded to the ethnic violence by launching a campaign to crush separatism in the remote Xinjiang region that saw tens of thousands of Uyghurs swept into detention camps for reasons as trivial as having a beard.
China, which has long touted itself as one of the world’s safest nations, has been rocked by a spate of fatal stabbings this year. Social media users have connected that rise in violence to growing economic pressures, as the property crisis wipes out billions of dollars in household wealth and puts growing strain on the job market.
In September, a school bus in Shandong province crashed into a group of students and parents, killing at least 11 and injuring 24. Authorities said the vehicle “lost control” without providing more information.
The Zhuhai incident was not reported by mainstream Chinese media outlets until Tuesday evening, nearly 24 hours later. When the police statement was published, an immediate search for “Zhuhai car ramming” on China’s X-like Weibo returned only a scattering of posts, suggesting discussions of the tragedy have been tightly controlled overnight.
That report was swiftly followed by instructions from China’s top leaders. Xi urged all authorities to draw lessons from the case, and strengthen their prevention and control of risks. He also emphasized the importance of resolving disputes in a timely manner, and making every effort to safeguard the security of people’s lives and social stability.
The attack took place with Zhuhai already in the national spotlight, as it prepared to open the country’s biggest annual civil and military aviation show Tuesday, where the ruling Communist Party often showcases its latest equipment advances.
The tragedy also came as the Chinese president was poised to leave his country on Wednesday for a summit of Asia-Pacific nations in Peru, where he will see other world leaders for the first time since Donald Trump won the U.S. election.
On Weibo some users already questioned the official explanation of the attacker’s motive, after authorities also said the man was unconscious at a hospital after harming himself with a knife inside his car.
“Fan is in a coma, how did you know the reason for the murder?” asked one user, who criticized the initial media blackout. “Why did you stop the media at the scene from sending back reports?”
The user added: “I am waiting for the follow-up investigation to see if people’s lives matter less than national events.”
Others urged the authorities to investigate and reveal the true causes behind these cases. “If extreme events keep happening, they’re no longer isolated incidents,” one user wrote. “The media shouldn’t stay silent, and the authorities shouldn’t only focus on stability. We need to know if there’s anything wrong with the society.”
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