A KNIFE-WIELDING attacker has wounded 37 students and two adults at a primary school in southern China on Thursday.

The victims, including teaching staff, were sent to hospital but were not in a life-threatening condition, authorities in Cangwu county in the Guangxi region said.

The incident at the Wangfu Central Primary School happened at 8.30am when children would normally arrive for class. The attacker, reportedly aged around 50, was “under control”, the government said.

“37 students suffered mild injuries and two adults suffered more severe injuries. All of them were sent to a hospital for treatment, and none of their lives are in danger,” it said.

Local media identified the perpetrator as a security guard.

Schools in the region had only reopened in May after being closed for months due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A number of schools in China have been hit by attacks in recent years, forcing authorities to step up security amid calls for more research into the root causes of such acts.

In November, a man climbed a kindergarten wall in southwest Yunnan province and sprayed people with a corrosive liquid, wounding 51 of them, mostly students.

Last September, eight schoolchildren died and two others were wounded in a “school-related criminal case” in the central Hubei province, with a 40-year-old man arrested.

A knife-wielding man killed two people and wounded two others at a primary school in central Hunan province in April last year.

In April 2018, a man killed nine middle school students as they were returning home, in one of the deadliest knife attacks seen in China in recent years.

A homemade explosive killed eight people and injured dozens outside a kindergarten in Jiangsu province in June 2017.

- © AFP 2020