WORLD
Seven people killed after 17 mail bombs blast public buildings in China
Baku, October 1, AZERTAC
More than a dozen explosions targeting public buildings in a small city in southern China killed at least seven people and injured over 50 on Wednesday, officials and state media said, according to National Post.
The Ministry of Public Security said it was treating the case as a criminal act, and not terrorism. It said a 33-year-old local man, identified only by his family name of Wei, was considered a suspect, but provided no further details, including a possible motive or whether the man had been detained.
A local Communist Party newspaper, the Guangxi Daily, cited police as saying there were 17 explosions in Liucheng county, leaving seven people dead, two missing and 51 injured. The paper also said the suspect had not been apprehended.
"There were so many of them, and they were so loud, everyone in the county could hear them," said a hotel employee who gave only his family name, Li. The hotel is near a township office building that was hit by one of the explosions.
"They sounded like someone was blasting rocks in the mountains," Li said.
The explosions, which occurred between 3:15 p.m. and 5 p.m., hit a hospital, local markets, a shopping mall, a bus station and several government buildings, including a jail and dormitories for government workers, according to a police statement posted by the local newspaper Nanguo Zaobao.