Knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China leaves 8 dead and 17 injured

A Chinese flag flies outside of the Secondary Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin northeastern China's Tianjin municipality, Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Beijing -

A stabbing attack at a vocational school in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi on Saturday left eight people dead and 17 others injured, local police said.

The attack took place at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in Yixing, a smaller city within Wuxi, at around 6:30 p.m. local time, the Yixing police said in a statement.

The suspect, a 21-year old male student surnamed Xu, was detained on site.

Police said Wu had failed his examinations and could not graduate, and that he was dissatisfied about his pay at an internship. He decided to vent his frustrations via the attack, the statement said.

Videos circulating on Western social media platforms like X showed injured people lying on the street after the attack while others rushed to help. On Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, keyword searches of the attack turn up the police statement but no videos or images related to the attack.

The Chinese government often censors internet content if it’s deemed overly sensitive or political. Most Western social media sites and search engines like Google are blocked behind what's commonly known as the Great Firewall, which regulates what is accessible within China.

This is the second deadly attack within a week after a man drove his car into people at a sports facility in the southern city of Zhuhai, leaving 35 people dead and injured 43 others.

China has seen a number of attacks in which suspects appear to target members of the public at random.

In October, a man was detained after he allegedly attacked children with a knife at a school in Beijing. Five people were wounded.

In September, three people were killed in a knife attack in a Shanghai supermarket, and 15 others were injured. Police said at the time that the suspect had personal financial disputes and came to Shanghai to “vent his anger.”

The same month, a Japanese schoolboy died after being stabbed on his way to school in the southern city of Shenzhen.