Residents mourn 35 people killed in car-ramming attack

ZHUHAI (AP):

People in a southern Chinese city were paying respects Wednesday to 35 of its residents killed by a driver who rammed his vehicle into a sports complex, mowing down people as they were exercising.

Police have offered little information about the 62-year-old attacker beyond saying the man, identified only by his surname of Fan, was upset about his divorce settlement. He was arrested immediately after the assault as he tried to flee the scene in the city of Zhuhai on Monday night.

The attack, which also severely injured 43 people, took place on the eve of the Zhuhai Airshow, sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army and held every other year. China often makes extra efforts to tightly control information around major or sensitive events.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Zhuhai residents laid flowers in honour of the victims outside the Zhuhai People’s Fitness Plaza in southern Guangdong province. Police presence was light, though the number of officers later increased. The sports complex was closed until further notice.

Police allowed the public to leave bouquets just outside the entrance of the sports complex but volunteers then quickly moved the flowers inside the sports centre.

“May there be no thugs in heaven,” said a message on one of the bouquets. “Good deeds will be rewarded and evil deeds will be punished.”

Chinese authorities are careful what is publicly said around major catastrophes or violence, often censoring eyewitness accounts. It took almost 24 hours following the attack before information with definite casualty tolls was released.

Videos, quickly censored inside China, circulated outside the Great Firewall. Most were posted by ‘Teacher Li’, an artist turned dissident who runs a X account with 1.7 million followers that posts crowdsourced videos about news in China.

Articles from Chinese media featuring interviews with survivors were quickly taken down Monday and Tuesday. One of the articles said that among the many injured were elderly who had joined speed walking groups.

Zhuhai residents were still processing the news of the attack.

“It is very shocking,’ said Dong Chilin. “My husband goes jogging there every night. I called him immediately. ... Fortunately, none of the people I know was there that day.”

She said her two children asked their father to stay away from the area for now.

Another woman, who only gave her last name as Guan, said she had passed by the site around 8 p.m. Monday night but had thought it was just a traffic accident. “Of course this was very shocking. It was very horrible.”

Police said their preliminary investigation found that Fan was unhappy with his divorce settlement but gave no further information on his divorce or alleged motive.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for strict punishment according to law in a statement on Tuesday evening.

He also urged all local governments “to strengthen prevention and ... prevent extreme cases from occurring, and to resolve conflicts and disputes in a timely manner,” according to the official Xinhua news agency.