China suffers another knife attack

A knife-wielding maniac stabbed 18 pupils and a teacher at a Chinese school today even as another man was executed for killing eight children in a similar attack last month.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the man broke into Leicheng Primary School in southern Leizhou city at about 3pm (8am Irish time).

Parents rushed to the school, and school officials were asking the rest of the pupils to go home

The man, described as in his 40s, was in police custody.

The attack came the same day Zhang Minsheng, 41, was executed in neighbouring Fujian province for the March 23 murders of eight children outside their school as they waited with their parents for classes to start.

During his trial earlier this month, Zhang admitted to killing the children because he had been upset after being jilted by a woman and treated badly by her wealthy family.

China has witnessed a series of school attacks in recent years, most blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness, leading to calls for improved security.

Two weeks ago a mentally ill man hacked to death a schoolboy and an elderly woman with a meat cleaver in southern Guangxi, and injured five other people.