Multiple people, including children, were injured after a car plowed through a crowd outside a school in eastern China on Tuesday, according to a report from a state-controlled broadcaster.
The car knocked down pedestrians and students outside the school in the city of Jinhua in the province of Zhejiang as classes were finishing for the day, a traffic radio program reported on Wednesday.
The number of people injured and the severity of their injuries is not yet known. It was unclear whether it was an accident or a deliberate act.
Sudden acts of violence targeting random members of the public, including school children, have surged across the country in recent years as economic growth stutters, unnerving a population long accustomed low rates of violent crime and ubiquitous surveillance.
In a video shared by Voice of Traffic, a radio program from state-owned Guangdong Radio and Television, a woman who witnessed Tuesday’s event said the car “just kept rolling down” and “a lot of people were crushed underneath it.”
“People were knocking on (the driver’s) window,” she added.
In a country where the ruling Communist Party prizes stability, officials have often carefully controlled or outright censored information following attacks on the public.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the central government had not commented on the incident and state broadcaster CCTV had not reported on it. Censors have also swooped in to moderate online discussion and remove videos posted to Chinese social media.
Many online users have taken to warning each other to be cautious of random acts of violence. People are said to be becoming more “desperate and unstable” and taking “revenge against society” amid China’s growing economic woes, which now also include the imposition of sky-high tariffs by US President Donald Trump.
In recent months, China has seen several cases of violence against the public. In November, 35 people were killed after a man rammed his car into crowds exercising at an outdoor sports center in southern China, in what was the deadliest known attack on the public in a decade. The same month, multiple students were also injured after a car rammed into people outside an elementary school in the southern province of Hunan.
Eight people were killed and 17 others injured in a mass stabbing at a college campus in eastern China, also in November. Other recent incidents include a stabbing attack near an elementary school in Beijing in October, which injured five people, including three children.