Knifeman kills four in southwest China

The man was said to have "hacked passengers on a bus" in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, on Sunday night during an attack which also saw 11 others injured, Xinhua said Monday.

He then got off the bus and targeted people on the street before police opened fire and overpowered him, the state-run news agency said.

Reports late on Sunday initially said three people had been killed.

The 41-year-old suspect told police that he had "worked as migrant worker elsewhere and has financial disputes with his family members", Xinhua said.

A 10-year-old girl was among those wounded in the incident, China Central Television reported, according to Xinhua. The victims were not believed to be linked to the dispute.

The attack is the latest in a series of deadly incidents across China, where social tensions have risen in recent years against a backdrop of a widening income gap and abuses of public power.

On August 19 a man with a knife attacked passengers on a bus in the central provinces of Henan, killing three people including a 10-month-old baby and a 10-year-old boy.

At the end of last month, a mentally ill man stabbed three passers-by to death and wounded five others in the southern boom town of Shenzhen, while another knifeman killed five people in Henan over land and business disputes.

Earlier in July, a man in the southern region of Guangxi stormed an office enforcing China's one-child policy, stabbing two officials to death and wounding four after a row over his offspring.