At least nine people have been killed and more than 40 injured after a car ploughed into a crowd at a public square in southern China.
Video footages posted to social media by China’s state media show the crowd dispersing quickly as a vehicle runs off the road into a crowd. Emergency vehicles are also on the scene.
The driver of a red SUV, a 54-year-old Chinese man named Yang Zanyun was arrested after ploughing into a large group of people at the square in Hengdong county, Hunan Province, at 7.40pm local time (9.40pm AEST) late on Wednesday according to a government account.
The Beijing Youth Daily, a publication of the ruling Communist party’s youth league, stated on its official microblog that police were investigating the crash whether there was terrorism or any other suspected motive.
Occasionally, the attacks are attributed to militant separatists, though such attacks have become less common in recent years.
Five people had been killed in 2013and 38 more injured after an SUV crashed and exploded in Tiananmen Square in what was deemed a suicide attack.
> Shiuly Rina
