People have been thronging the crime scene, leaving flowers and lighting candles outside the barricaded facility. - Photo: ST
ZHUHAI, (China): Residents in the sleepy coastal city of Zhuhai are reeling from the shock of the worst massacre in the country in recent years, after a man drove an SUV into a crowd exercising at a sports complex on Monday (Nov 11) evening, killing 35 and wounding 43.
People have been thronging the venue since the police announced the death toll on Nov 12, leaving flowers and lighting candles outside the barricaded facility now secured by a heavy police presence.
The tributes were moved out of the public eye, into a restricted area within the sports complex that only the victims’ families could access, staff told The Straits Times on Nov 12.
“I felt first anger, and then grief,” said a resident who turned up to offer flowers on the night of Nov 12, and choked up while speaking to The Straits Times.
“I never thought this sort of thing would happen around me,” said the man who lives and works in the area but declined to be named.
Another man who works nearby also said he grappled with the news of the attack, which he learnt of through WeChat messages from friends.
“Zhuhai is generally a place with a slow pace of life... where life is easy and comfortable,” said Li, who is in his 20s, of the city of 2.4 million bordering Macau.
Residents visited hospitals and blood donation vans to donate blood to help the injured shortly after the attack, local media reported. Taxi drivers were reported to have provided free rides to ferry blood donors.
While the local police issued a short statement on the night of the attack, it was not until late on Nov 12 that the news was widely reported on national media.
Videos showing a car mowing down a group of people around a running track, as well as victims lying on the ground motionless, were quickly scrubbed from social media.
In a longer statement on Nov 12, Zhuhai police said the attacker, a 62-year-old man identified only by his surname, Fan, had been dissatisfied with the distribution of matrimonial assets related to his divorce.
He was stopped by the police while trying to flee the crime scene, and had used a knife to cut himself, resulting in serious injuries, said the police. They added that he is in a coma in hospital.
Online, anger erupted over the media blackout, which some netizens have attributed to the authorities not wanting bad news to overshadow the ongoing Zhuhai Airshow, a marquee event with more than 1,000 companies and nearly 50 countries participating in 2024.
The biennial air show is the biggest in China and is a prime platform for the Chinese military to showcase its latest hardware – from stealth fighters to attack drones – to an international audience.
Accounts said to have been written by victims’ family members were removed from social media.
“I don’t know why we can’t see any information about the victims’ families on the Chinese internet,” said a Weibo user from Guangdong. “Behind the 35 dead are the hearts of the several hundred people whom they influenced.”
Another Weibo user said: “I don’t know from (when), even the right to feel sorrow has been taken away, all for social stability.”
Some have also attributed the censorship to the government’s fear of social unrest and copycat incidents.
But Wang, 28, who frequently exercises at the sports complex, did not think the media blackout was an issue.
The delay in confirming the death toll was “very normal”, said the manager of a company that produces advertising material, as there was a need to “not cause social panic”, especially with the air show in town.
Criticisms of the media blackout were also swiftly taken down.
In the wake of the attack, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged “all-out efforts” to treat the injured, and called on officials to draw lessons from the incident and “strengthen their prevention and control of risks at the source”, Xinhua reported.
He also emphasised the importance of safeguarding “the security of people’s lives and social stability”, said the report.
Some netizens linked the Zhuhai attack – and other seemingly random acts of violence in recent months – to socio-economic problems in China.
“The economy is sliding, unemployment is growing, the rule of law is deficient... maybe these are the real reasons behind them,” said a Weibo user from Guangdong.
But Beijing-based psychology consultant Yan Zi cautioned against drawing such conclusions.
“I think it’s a little arbitrary to attribute these extreme events to society-level causes,” she said.
Some Zhuhai residents whom ST spoke to said they fear such violence could recur.
“Who wouldn’t be afraid?” said hairdresser Tony Li, 30, who characterised the attack as a “twisted form of revenge”.
The perpetrator took his frustrations out on society at large, he said, adding that the incident had been a topic of discussion for customers at his salon.
Another resident, Liang, 18, who works at a store near the sports centre, said: “If it can happen once, it can happen a second time.”
Her manager had been mass dancing at the sports hall and narrowly escaped being mowed down by the vehicle, she said.
Although the incidence of violent crime is relatively low in heavily surveilled China, a string of seemingly random acts of violence – from stabbings to cars ramming into innocent bystanders – has emerged in the country.
A 50-year-old man wounded five people, including three minors, in a knife attack outside a primary school in Beijing in October.
The month before, a 10-year-old Japanese pupil was killed outside his school in Shenzhen by a 44-year-old man. - The Straits Times/ANN
