A cleaver-wielding man killed one woman and wounded five before jumping to his death, police said today, in the latest in a series of rampage attacks in China.
The attack follows five separate assaults by lone assailants against schoolchildren in recent weeks that have left 17 dead and more than 50 wounded.
According to a police news release, Sunday night's attack began around 700 pm when 20-year-old Xie Yulin hacked at a woman outside a restaurant in the southern city of Foshan.
Xie then rushed into a crowded market and wounded five other women before climbing the stairs of a residential building and throwing himself off the fourth floor.
One victim, 35-year-old Tang Changrong, died of a wound to the neck yesterday afternoon, while the others were hospitalised in stable condition, local media reported today.
While Xie appeared to have deliberately targeted women, it was not immediately clear what triggered the attack. A spokesman for the Foshan police declined to answer questions about the case or provide his name.
Sociologists attribute the recent attacks mainly to a failure to diagnose and treat mental illness, rage and frustration among people who feel victimised by China's high-stress, fast-changing society.
Experts say the frequency of the attacks and choice of schoolchildren as the main victims suggest a copycat element. Security outside schools has been beefed up in response, and state broadcaster CCTV and other national media have excluded or downplayed reports on the attacks in an apparent attempt to avoid sparking wider panic or inspiring other would-be assailants.
At least three of the attackers in the early assaults had prior mental health histories and two killed themselves after the attacks. That included the killer in last week's assault on schoolchildren in Shaanxi province in which seven preschoolers and two adults were killed — the deadliest single attack in the recent series.
The attackers have mostly been men in their 30s or 40s who used knives and hammers. Guns are tightly controlled and difficult to obtain in China.
Reuters