35 killed, dozens wounded as car rams into crowd in Airshow China host city

A driver has killed 35 people and wounded 43 others in a “serious and vicious attack” in southern China, the latest mass homicide to shock the country and cast a pall over a display of Chinese military might only kilometres from the crime scene.

This image grab from a UGC video posted on November 11 shows emergency vehicles arriving after a driver ploughed through a crowd of people exercising at a sports center in Zhuhai. Picture: UGC/AFP

A driver has killed 35 people and wounded 43 others in a mass murder in southern China, shocking the country and casting a pall over a huge display of Chinese military might only kilometres from the crime scene.

Late on Tuesday, President Xi Jinping gave instructions that were broadcast through state media about the car ramming, which had taken place on Monday but had been covered in secrecy.

Xi told local officials to “draw lessons from the incident”, “strengthen their prevention and control of risks at the source” and prevent the “occurrence of extreme cases”, according to China’s news agency Xinhua.

The attack took place in Zhuhai, a city in the southern province of Guangdong, on the eve of the country’s biggest air show, China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, or Airshow China.

The Zhuhai tragedy appears to be the largest mass murder in the country since a China Eastern pilot flew his plane into the ground in 2022, killing himself and 131 other people.

In the hours before Xi’s message — even as social media in China was flooded with distressing messages of the incident — Beijing’s propaganda machine was pumping out videos and reports on new People’s Liberation Army Air Force equipment that was being shown off in the same city as the massacre.

Chinese-made Chengdu J-10 Vigorous Dragon fighter jets fly in formation during the 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, in south China's Guangdong province on November 12, 2024. (Photo by Hector Retamal / AFP)

For weeks, PLA media has flagged that the airshow would be used to unveil China’s new J-35 stealth fighter jet, a critical plank in Beijing’s efforts to overcome America’s air supremacy.

China’s Global Times said the airshow was not only a “showcase of strength” but also demonstrated the country’s “openness”.

A large contingent of foreign and domestic media were in Zhuhai for the air show. Local officials followed China’s disaster script, identifying foreign reporters and sending cadres to obstruct them.

BBC correspondent Stephen McDonell went to the sports centre where the 62-year-old man had driven into a crowd of people exercising together, but soon an unidentified man was pushing him and his cameraman away.

“Often, when sensitive stories like this unfold in China, local Communist Party officials organise groups of cadres to pretend to be outraged locals who have been given the role of targeting foreign reporters and preventing any coverage,” McDonnell said.

“Invariably it doesn’t stop the stories, it just makes China look bad,” he said.

It is the latest in a spate of violent public attacks in China. A man killed three people and wounded 15 in a knife attack at a supermarket in the Chinese megacity of Shanghai in October. In September, a Japanese schoolboy was stabbed in the southern city of Shenzhen and died of his injuries.

Preliminary investigations suggested that the driver, surnamed Fan, had been “triggered by (his) dissatisfaction with the division of property following his divorce”, according to local police.

A worker douses candles left outside the Zhuhai Sports Centre, a day after a car rammed through the site killing dozens in Zhuhai, in south China's Guangdong province on November 12, 2024. (Photo by Michael Zhang / AFP)

Fan drove “a small SUV through the gate and forced his way into the city’s sports centre, ramming people who were exercising on the internal roads of the sports centre”, the statement added.

The Zhuhai Sports Center sits over the road from the Zhuhai Intermediate Court.

The police found Fan in his car cutting himself with a knife, before they stopped him and sent him to hospital. He is currently in a coma after self-inflicted injuries to his neck and other parts of his body and unable to undergo interrogation, police added.

Airshow China continues in Zhuhai until Sunday. According to state media reports, there are more than 1,000 companies exhibiting, including from Russia, France, the US, Saudi Arabia and Italy.

The air show was designed to send the message that China’s military is “equal to the US and the rest of the west,” according to American analysts.

With AFP