Multiple students were injured after a car crashed into people outside a primary school in central China on Tuesday morning, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Authorities have not said how many people were injured in the incident, which took place in Hunan province’s Changde city. A 39-year-old male suspect was arrested and the incident remains “under further investigation,” according to a local police statement.
The injured were sent to the hospital for treatment and “none were in life-threatening condition so far,” said the police report, which was released hours after the incident.
Video circulating on social media and geolocated by CNN showed dozens of panicked school children screaming and running into the schoolyard, with a man’s voice heard yelling “quickly, quickly,” in the background.
Another showed multiple people, including adults, lying on the road, apparently injured. Police could be seen handcuffing a man in front of a vehicle.
Images circulating online of the incident were quickly wiped from social media platforms, while comments sections on posts related to the incidents were disabled.
CNN called the local police station but the person who answered didn’t respond to questions.
The incident comes just over a week after China saw its deadliest known attack in a decade, when 35 were killed after a man plowed his car into crowds exercising at an outdoor sports center in the southern city of Zhuhai.
Days later, eight people were killed and 17 others injured in a mass stabbing on a college campus in eastern China on Saturday.
High-profile attacks in recent months have rattled a population long used to low rates of violent crime. Censors have scrambled to remove videos posted to social media and moderate online discussion to minimize any perception of social instability.
The sudden episodes of violence, apparently targeting random members of the public, including school children, however, have surged across the country as economic growth stutters.
Many online have taken to warning each other to be cautious as people are becoming more desperate and unstable – and taking “revenge against society.”
Social media users voiced similar concern Tuesday, with some commenting on a since-deleted post that “so many people are taking revenge on society these days” and expressing disgust that some would “target kids to get back at society.”
Other recent incidents include a stabbing attack near an elementary school in Beijing in October, which injured five people, including three children.
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 in Shandong province, killing 11 people and injuring 13 others. The authorities did not reveal whether it was accidental or deliberate.
