A knife-wielding 47-year-old man who stormed into a classroom at a kindergarten in Taixing, Jiangsu, yesterday morning stabbed 29 children and three adults before being subdued.
It was the third such attack at a mainland school in a little more than a month, fuelling concerns about school security and prompting calls for the social implications of such outrages to be examined.
Taixing authorities said 29 pupils, a teacher, a security guard and a volunteer worker were stabbed by Xu Yuyuan after he stormed into the Taixing Township Central Kindergarten at about 9.40am. At least five of the victims, all children, are in critical condition in hospital. Xu was detained by police.
On Wednesday morning, unemployed former surgeon Zheng Minsheng, 42, was executed for stabbing eight children to death and wounding another five at a primary school in Nanping, Fujian, on March 23.
Hours later, a 33-year-old man stabbed 16 students and a teacher at the Leicheng No1 Primary School in the western Guangdong town of Leizhou, causing severe injuries. Chen Kangbing, a teacher from another primary school who had been on sick leave since February 2006, snuck into the school along with other teachers attending a demonstration class before launching his attack.
The Ministry of Education formed a special 22-member advisory board on Wednesday tasked with advising authorities on school security.