Nine killed in latest China school attack

A man armed with a meat cleaver killed seven children and two adults at a Chinese nursery today, the latest in a series of savage assaults on the country's schools.

The killer, 48-year-old Wu Huanming, returned home after the attack on the outskirts of the city of Hanzhong and committed suicide.

Wu owned the property used by the school and had apparently argued with the school's manager, who was among the victims.

It was the fifth major assault on school pupils in China since late March and occurred despite increased security countrywide, with gates and security cameras installed at some schools and additional police and guards posted at entrances.

The latest deaths were certain to fuel speculation about why assailants, usually lone males, are targeting schools.

Sociologists say the recent attacks that have killed 17 and wounded more than 60 reflect the tragic consequences of ignoring mental illness and rising stress resulting from huge social inequalities in China's fast-changing society.

"The perpetrators have contracted a 'social psychological infectious disease' that shows itself in a desire to take revenge on society," said Zhou Xiaozheng of Beijing's Renmin University.

"They pick children as targets because they are the weakest and most vulnerable," he said.

The recent attacks are classic "copycat crimes", the effects of which may be amplified by media coverage, Zhou said.

After past attacks, authorities have banned or limited media coverage, and early reports on today's attack were removed from Chinese websites or moved to less prominent pages. There was no mention of it on state television's national evening news report.

The apparent attempts to play down the assault may indicate fears that coverage inspires other assailants, but authorities may also have wanted to avoid the embarrassing news, especially during the World Expo in Shanghai, a pet government project.

The attack began at about 8.20am as children were arriving at the private Shengshui Temple Kindergarten in Hanzhong's Nanzheng county.

The area is on the city's rural outskirts in a relatively poor part of the country, and the school, which had only about 20 students, was in a tumbledown two-storey farmhouse.

Wu killed the school's manager and a pupil on the spot, then hacked at 18 others.

Six children and Wu Hongying's 80-year-old mother later died in the hospital. Eleven others were injured.

Recent scandals in which children have been the main victims have sparked public anger and occasional protests, such as when at least 3,000 children around the country were found to have lead poisoning from polluting factories built too close to villages, and when more than 300,000 infants were sickened by tainted baby milk powder.

A statement from the Hanzhong city government after today's attack vowed to "leave no stone unturned, learn from the mistakes, and strictly ensure nothing happens like this again".

The city government earlier reported that about 2,000 police officers and security guards had been sent to patrol public schools, nurseries and surrounding areas beginning last week. The city in Shaanxi province has a population of nearly four million.

The string of school assaults began with an attack on a primary school in March in the city of Nanping in Fujian province where eight children were slashed to death by a former community clinic doctor with a history of mental health problems. Since then, dozens have been wounded in similar attacks.