Students hurt in China primary school crash as nerves fray over recent attacks

BEIJING: A driver in an SUV ploughed into students and pedestrians outside a primary school in southern China on Tuesday, leaving several people injured, state media said, as worries spread over a spate of violent attacks in the country over the past week.

CCTV and other state media reported the SUV hit people outside a primary school in Changde city in Hunan province as students were coming in for the day.

Many were injured, CCTV reported and police said they were sent to the hospital "as soon as possible," with none having sustained life-threatening injuries. Police did not provide a detailed number of those hurt.

The police also said a 39-year-old male was arrested in connection with the incident, although it did not explain in the brief statement how the incident occurred, saying only that investigations were continuing.

Reuters was unable to connect by phone to emergency services for Changde to seek comment.

The incident happened just over a week after a driver rammed his vehicle into a crowd at a sports centre in Zhuhai in southern China, killing 35 people and severely injuring 43 in the deadliest mass attack in China in a decade.

Short video clips circulating on Chinese social media on Tuesday showed young children running into the Changde school compound, shouting, "Help."

One clip shows a compact, white SUV stopped beyond the school entrance. At least five people, including a student with a backpack, were lying on the path taken by the vehicle on the narrow street in front of the school, the videos show.

Someone can be heard shouting, "Call the police" as a man is surrounded by a crowd and apparently beaten with sticks and rods.

A separate clip shows a man handcuffed and being held down on wet cement by a figure in uniform. A woman's voice says the person drove to the school by himself and crashed there.

Reuters was able to verify the location where the videos were shot matched the reported location for the crash at a primary school for children between about 6 and 12 years old.

"Why are such incidents happening more and more frequently lately, hit-and-runs, and always involving students? What has happened to society now?," said one commentator on social media platform Weibo.

China's top prosecutors met on Tuesday to discuss sentencing for "major vicious and extreme crimes," as well as those that endanger public security, a statement from the Supreme People's Procuratorate said on its official Weibo social media account.

"The hand of 'strictness' can never be loosened," said Ying Yong, procurator-general, in the post, which was among the top five trending topics on the social media platform. "We must be resolute and determined and punish crimes severely and quickly in accordance with the law to provide a strong deterrent."

'REVENGE AGAINST SOCIETY'

Police blamed last week's Zhuhai deaths on a male driver angry at his divorce settlement. Days later, a former student went on a stabbing rampage at a vocational college in eastern China's Wuxi, killing eight people.

In both the Zhuhai and Wuxi cases, little information has been released by police, although from brief statements made public, it appears the two men lashed out with fatal violence against unrelated bystanders after suffering an economic loss.

The lack of detailed disclosures by authorities has stirred discussion on Chinese social media, much of it quickly censored, about a rise in economic and societal pressure in the country and the mental health resources available to deal with it.

Including the Wuxi attack, there have been at least seven high-profile knife attacks this year across China.

China's official crime statistics show rates of violent crime much lower than the global average.

But Qu Weiguo, a Fudan University professor, said the recent cases of "indiscriminate revenge against society" in China had some common features: disadvantaged suspects, many with mental health issues, who believed that they had been treated unfairly and who felt they had no other way to be heard.

"It is important to establish a social safety net and a psychological counselling mechanism, but in order to minimise such cases, the most effective way is to open public channels that can monitor and expose the use of power," Qu posted on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.

The short essay was removed by censors on Sunday afternoon.

Trending online discussion topics over the past year have put a focus on diminished optimism in China for a turnaround in jobs, income and opportunity. One of those - "the garbage time of history" - took off in the summer as a shorthand for economic despair.

In recent weeks, Chinese officials have rolled out a raft of stimulus measures to revive the economy. Last week's car attack also prompted an intervention by President Xi Jinping, who urged local police to "strengthen their control of risks" by identifying people at risk of lashing out.

Security has been tightened this week at major street crossings in Beijing with additional barriers and police officers deployed to key locations.

Xi had visited Changde, a transit hub and city with more than 5 million people, in March, in one of his regular inspection trips around the country.

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