35 killed, dozens wounded in south China car ramming: Police

62-year-old driver had been ‘triggered by dissatisfaction with division of property’

BEIJING:  Thirty-five people were killed and 43 wounded when a car ploughed into people exercising around a sports centre in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai, local police said Tuesday.

The ramming was reported on Monday, though at the time police only said that people had been injured, while videos of the incident appeared to have been scrubbed from social media.

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But on Tuesday, police said that a “serious and vicious attack” had occurred at Zhuhai Sports Centre, revealing the death toll to be 35.

The 43 people wounded are not currently in life-threatening conditions.

Preliminary investigations suggested that the 62-year-old driver, surnamed Fan, had been “triggered by (his) dissatisfaction with the division of property following his divorce”, the police said in a statement.

Fan drove “a small SUV through the gate and forced his way into the city’s sports centre, ramming people who were exercising on the internal roads of the sports centre”, the statement added.

He was “controlled on the spot by the police who rushed to the scene as he attempted to drive away”.

The police found Fan in his car cutting himself with a knife, before they stopped him and sent him to hospital.

He is currently in a coma after self-inflicted injuries to his neck and other parts of his body and unable to undergo interrogation, police added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged “all-out efforts” to treat the people injured and has “demanded punishing the perpetrator in accordance with the law”, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Graphic videos circulating on social media on Monday night showed the aftermath of the incident, though most had disappeared by Tuesday.

China’s largest airshow showcasing Beijing’s civil and military aerospace sector is being held in the same city at the moment.

The country has seen a spate of violent public attacks in recent months.

A man killed three people and wounded 15 in a knife attack at a supermarket in the Chinese megacity of Shanghai in October.

In September, a Japanese schoolboy was stabbed in the southern city of Shenzhen and died of his injuries, prompting outrage from Tokyo.

And in July, police said a vehicle crashed into pedestrians in the central city of Changsha, killing eight.