China car crash horror as driver ploughs SUV into crowds outside primary school

The casualty count was unclear and authorities are yet to clarify if the incident at Yong'an Elementary School in the city of Changde, China, was an accident or a deliberate attack

Children walking into their primary school with their parents were mowed down as an SUV ploughed into a crowd of people.

The casualty count was unclear and authorities are yet to clarify if the incident at Yong'an Elementary School in the city of Changde, China, was an accident or a deliberate attack. Numerous children were injured and several adults were also hurt, according to the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The state media released few details but said students were arriving for classes at around 8am when a small white SUV drove into a crowd of children and adults. The driver was said to have been "subdued by parents and security guards" and some of the injured were immediately sent to hospital.

In one image a man appears to be smashing the driver's car window with a stick. Police in the city's Dingcheng district, where the school is located, issued a statement saying no-one had life-threatening injuries and identifying the driver as a 39-year-old man with the surname Huang, who was being detained.

It said the incident was under investigation but gave no information about the cause or other details. Footage posted on Chinese social media showed the injured lying on the road while terrified students ran past the gate and inside the school building.

Chinese schools have been subject to numerous attacks by people armed with knives or using vehicles as weapons in recent months. A stabbing attack at a vocational school in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi on Saturday left eight people dead and 17 others injured.

This came shortly after a man drove his car into people at a sports facility in the southern city of Zhuhai, leaving 35 people dead and 43 others injured. 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 had gone to the city 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. The Chinese government generally censors internet content it deems overly sensitive or political, and some images of the school incident were quickly taken down.

Most western social media sites and search engines such as Google are blocked in China, limiting available content even while some people use tools like VPNs and send news through Chinese social media before the censors have time to catch it.