Six dead as car hits crowd in China, police kill driver
BEIJING (AFP) - A car rammed into a crowd in central China Friday, killing six people and injuring seven others, and the driver was fatally shot by police, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The injured were taken to hospital following the early morning incident in Zaoyang City in Hubei Province, CCTV said.
China has suffered a spate of similar incidents in recent months.
Last September, 11 people died and dozens were injured when a car struck a crowd in a public square in the central Hunan province city of Hengdong.
Police detained the driver, a man in his 40s, and described him as a vengeful repeat offender who had daggers in his car and intended to "cause serious damage".
In late November, a car ploughed into a group of children crossing a street in front of an elementary school in the northeastern Liaoning province, killing five people and injuring at least 19.
The driver said he chose his victims at random and had reportedly been contemplating suicide due to domestic troubles before the tragedy occurred.
The blast occurred on Thursday at the Chenjiagang Industrial Park in the city of Yancheng, and the fire was finally brought under control at 3.00am on Friday, state television said. Survivors were taken to 16 hospitals with 640 people being treated for injuries. Thirty-two of them were critically injured, it said.
The fire at a plant owned by the Tianjiayi Chemical Company spread to neighbouring factories. Children at a kindergarten in the vicinity were also injured in the blast, media reported.
The cause of the blast was under investigation, but the company – which produces more than 30 organic chemical compounds, some of which are highly flammable – has been cited and fined for work safety violations in the past, the China Daily said.
The Jiangsu environmental protection bureau said in a statement late Thursday that the environmental monitoring station in the area had found no abnormal concentrations of toluene, xylene or benzene.
Blast at Chinese chemical plant kills 44, injures 640
Earlier, an explosion at a pesticide plant in eastern China’s Jiangsu province has killed 44 people and injured more than 600, state media said on Friday, the latest casualties in a series of industrial accidents that has angered the public.
