Hit-and-run in China: 35 dead after car plows into crowd outside sports center, police say

Hong Kong
CNN
—

According to police, 35 people were killed in southern China on Monday evening after a car plowed into a crowd of people exercising on the grounds of an outdoor sports center.

More than 40 people were injured and hospitalized after the SUV struck people at the Zhuhai Sports Center in the southern city of Zhuhai around 8 p.m. on Monday, police said in a statement on Tuesday.

The alleged driver, a 62-year-old man surnamed Fan, was unhappy with the outcome of the divorce agreement, the statement said. He was arrested by police as he tried to flee the scene.

“The officers discovered that Fan was injuring himself with a knife in the vehicle, immediately stopped him and took him to the hospital for treatment. Due to severe neck injuries, Fan is currently unconscious, is still receiving emergency treatment and cannot be questioned,” the police statement said.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the incident was allegedly sparked by fans’ dissatisfaction with the results of the division of assets following his divorce, the statement added. Fan was arrested on suspicion of “endangering public safety.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for comprehensive efforts to treat the injured and called for strict punishment of the perpetrator in accordance with the law. He described the hit-and-run massacre as a case of “extremely malicious nature,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The The hit-and-run incident occurred on the eve of China’s largest civil and military air show, November 12-17 in Zhuhai.

Online videos of the aftermath, geolocated by CNN, show dozens of people lying with scattered shoes on jogging tracks and nearby compounds.

Many of the injured were wearing exercise clothing, including the uniforms of at least two local fitness walking groups.

Chinese media outlet Caixin reported that the SUV crashed into several fitness walking groups, hitting dozens of participants. Many of the injured were middle-aged and older, but there were also teenagers and children, Caixin reported.

“(The vehicle) hit everywhere and injured people in different sections of the circular track of the sports field, in the eastern, southern, western and northern areas,” a witness surnamed Liu told Caixin.

The Zhuhai Sports Center has outdoor athletics and is visited by local residents for daily exercises. Following the incident, the center announced it would remain closed until further notice.

China, a country of 1.4 billion people, generally has low violent crime rates. However, in recent months there has been a spate of attacks targeting randomly selected people, including school children.

In October, police arrested a 50-year-old man after five people, including three children, were injured in a knife attack near a primary school in Beijing.

In September, three people were killed and 15 others injured in a knife attack at a suburban supermarket in Shanghai.

Also in September, a bus crashed into a crowd of students and parents outside a school in Tai’an city, Shandong province, killing 11 people and injuring 13 others. Chinese authorities did not say whether it was an accident or intentional.