Three dead and 15 hurt in Shanghai Walmart stabbing
Three people lost their lives and 15 others were injured after a man went on a stabbing spree inside a Walmart supermarket in Shanghai on Monday night.
Chinese police reported the arrest of a 37-year-old man with the surname Lin at the scene, noting that he had traveled to Shanghai to “vent his anger” stemming from a personal economic dispute. Ongoing investigations are underway.
The incident occurred in a shopping mall located in Songjiang, a densely populated area in the city’s southwest, home to several universities.
Authorities stated that the three victims died after being taken to the hospital, while the others sustained injuries that were not life-threatening and are not believed to be in critical condition.
“There was blood everywhere,” said an eyewitness with the surname Shi to BBC News.
Mr. Shi, who operates a jewelry store on the ground floor of the Ludu International Commercial Plaza, mentioned that dozens of firefighters and SWAT officers rushed into the mall and instructed people to evacuate.
“I didn’t know what was happening, but suddenly, I saw people running in a panic,” he said.
“No one had ever experienced something like this, and we weren’t mentally prepared for it… This kind of random incident is terrifying and unsettling,” he said, adding that he had “narrowly escaped” death.
Discussions about the incident now appear to have been censored on Chinese social media.
The supermarket was open for business on Tuesday but with additional security.
Firearms are banned in China but the country has seen a spate of knife attacks in recent months.
Last month, a 10-year-old Japanese student died a day after he was stabbed near his school in southern China.
In June this year, four US college instructors were stabbed in a public park in the northeast city of Jilin. In May, a man stabbed dead two people and wounded 21 others at a hospital in the southern province of Yunnan.
