Chaotic scene: Emergency personnel working near the site of a suspected hit-and-run attack which left several wounded outside a sports centre in Zhuhai, China, in this screengrab taken from a social media video. — Reuters
A 62-year-old man was detained after he rammed a car into people exercising at a sports centre in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai and fled.
One of the four hospitals that took in people for treatment said it had more than 20 injured people, state media reported on Monday.
Police identified the man only by his family name of Fan, consistent with the practice by Chinese authorities. The police statement said the vehicle knocked down “a number of” pedestrians on Monday evening.
It was not immediately clear whether it was an attack or an accident. No motive was mentioned and police said investigations continued.
Videos showing a firefighter performing CPR on a person as people were told to leave the scene were shared by news blogger and dissident Li Ying, better known as Teacher Li on X. His account posts daily news based on user submissions. Dozens of people were lying prone on the ground in the videos. In one, a woman says “my foot is broken”.
The incident occurred on the eve of China’s annual air show in Zhuhai.
By yesterday morning, searches for the incident on Chinese social media were heavily censored on Chinese social media platforms. A search on Weibo for the sports centre only turned up a few posts, with just a couple referring to the fact that something had happened but without pictures or details. Articles about the incident from Monday night were taken down.
The sports centre for the city district of Xiangzhou regularly attracts hundreds of residents, where they can run on the track field, play soccer and social dance.
Following the incident, the centre announced it would be closed until further notice.
China has seen a number of attacks in which suspects appear to target random people such as schoolchildren.
In October, a 50-year-old man was detained after he allegedly used a knife to attack children at a school in Beijing, where five people were injured.
And in September, three people were killed in a knife attack in a Shanghai supermarket. — AP
