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.
It’s not clear how many people were injured in the incident, which took place in Hunan province’s Changde city. In a brief report, state broadcaster CCTV said “specific casualties were being investigated.”
Another showed multiple people, including adults, lying on the road, apparently injured. Police could be seen handcuffing a man in front of a vehicle.
The police have yet to release a report about the incident. Images circulating online of the incident were quickly wiped from social media platforms.
The country has been rocked by a recent spate of public attacks, which have rattled a population long used to low rates of violent crime and sent censors into overdrive removing videos on social media and moderating online discussion.
China saw its deadliest known attack in a decade last Monday, 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 stabbing attack on a college campus in eastern China.
Sudden episodes of violence in recent months targeting random members of the public – including school children – have surged across the country as economic growth stutters, with many online warning each other to be cautious as people are becoming more desperate and unstable.
In October, police arrested a 50-year-old man after a stabbing attack near an elementary school in Beijing 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.