The incident followed an attack by a driver last week that left 35 people dead, and a mass stabbing several days later.
A man drove a car into a group of people near an elementary school in central China on Tuesday, injuring multiple students, in what appeared to be the third large-scale attack in the country in a little over a week.
None of the victims were in life-threatening condition, according to a statement by the police in Changde, the city in Hunan Province where the incident occurred. The driver, who the police said was 39 years old and surnamed Huang, was arrested.
Many Chinese were still reeling from two other recent tragedies: Last week, a man drove into a crowd at a sports center in the southern city of Zhuhai, killing at least 35 people, the deadliest attack in China in a decade. And on Saturday, a man went on a stabbing rampage at his former school, a vocational college in the eastern city of Wuxi, killing at least eight.
The spate of high-profile violence has raised fears about public safety and China’s lack of a social safety net, especially amid the country’s slowing economy. The authorities said Tuesday’s incident was still under investigation, but in the previous two attacks, the police had suggested that the perpetrators were unhappy with their financial situations.
Videos of the aftermath of the incident, shared on Chinese social media, showed young children in backpacks running, some screaming for help, while some people lay motionless on the ground. Another video showed a group of adults surrounding a man and kicking and beating him, near a white car; captions suggested the man was the driver.
