Two people died and 21 were injured in a knife assault by a man at a hospital in southwest China’s Yunnan province on Tuesday, local authorities reported.
“A knife attack took place in the hospital Chengnan, en el municipality in Zhenxiong which left two dead and 21 injured,” the municipality said in a statement published on its WeChat account.
The suspect – a man from a nearby town – is being investigated, authorities added.
The injured were taken to hospital, they added.
Images published by the information website The Paperstate, show a man pointing a knife at another individual who is raising a stick in the lobby of a hospital, while the police arrive at the scene.
Mass crimes are rare in China, a country where citizens are prohibited from owning firearms.
In recent years, however, a series of knife attacks have been recorded.
In August, two people were killed and seven others injured in Yunnan in a knife attack carried out by a man with a history of mental disorders.
The previous month, six people were killed and one injured in a knife attack, this time at a kindergarten in the southern province of Guangdong.