A 62-year-old man was detained after he rammed a car into people exercising at a sports center in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai and fled.
One of the four hospitals that took in people for treatment said it had more than 20 injured people, state media reported Monday.
Police identified the man only by his family name of Fan, consistent with the practice by Chinese authorities. The police statement said the vehicle knocked down “a number of” of pedestrians Monday evening.
It was not immediately clear whether it was an attack or an accident. No motive was mentioned, and police said investigations continued.
Videos showed a firefighter performing CPR on a person, as people were told to leave the scene. They were shared by news blogger and dissident Li Ying, who is better known on X as Teacher Li. His account posts daily news based on user submissions. Dozens of people were lying prone on the ground in the videos. In one, a woman says “my foot is broken.”
The incident occurred on the eve of China's annual air show in Zhuhai.
By Tuesday morning, searches for the incident on Chinese social media were heavily censored on Chinese social media platforms. A search on Weibo for the sports center only turned up a few posts, with only a couple referring to the fact something had happened, without pictures or details. Articles about the incident from Monday night were taken down.
The sports center for the city district of Xiangzhou regularly attracts hundreds of residents, where they can run on the track field, play soccer and social dance. Following the incident, the center announced it would be closed until further notice.
China has seen a number of attacks in which suspects appear to target random people such as schoolchildren.
In October, a 50-year-old man was detained after he allegedly used a knife to attack children at a school in Beijing. Five people were injured. In September, three people were killed in a knife attack in a Shanghai supermarket.
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Associated Press reporter Didi Tang contributed from Washington.
