Police in the Chinese city of Guangzhou are searching for a motive after a 22-year-old man allegedly drove his black BMW SUV into a crowd of people, killing five and injuring 13.
The incident, caught on surveillance cameras, shows the man traveling at a relatively slow speed as he seemingly swerved to hit as many people as possible. He then threw paper money into the air each time he hit a person, according to the footage.
The incident, which took place during rush hour in the city of 19 million people, garnered immediate outrage online, according to the BBC. Various postings on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, show children among the victims.
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“He deliberately drove into the people who were waiting for the traffic light,” one witness told Hongxin News. “He rammed the car into them maliciously. After that, he made a U-turn and hit people again.”
The witness added that he was not driving at high speed, “but some people couldn't run away in time because they wouldn’t have known he was hitting people deliberately.”
The man then reportedly got back into his car and chased a police officer on a motorcycle, who was not hurt. Rescue workers reportedly took more than an hour to clear the scene and take the dead and injured away.
One Weibo user described those caught up in the tragedy, writing, “The victims could be a girl who dressed up meticulously to go on a date… It could be a food deliveryman who earned five yuan after rushing an order. It could be a father who wanted to go home and have dinner with children. It could be a child who was happily shopping,” according to the BBC.
The tragedy was the second such deadly attack by a car reported just this year, after an incident in Shanghai on Monday when a hotel guest drove his car into the lobby after an argument with the receptionist.
Police did not immediately release the name of the 22-year-old man in custody in Wednesday’s deadly incident.