Four people have been wounded in a stabbing at a Shanghai hospital, local police said, before the knife-wielding attacker was shot and subdued by officers.
Huangpu district police said on social media that they received emergency reports at 11.30am local time (0430 BST) on Saturday of a stabbing at Ruijin hospital.
“The police quickly arrived on the scene and discovered a man holding a group of people hostage with a knife on the hospital’s seventh floor,” the statement said. “When the suspect intended to injure the hostages and punish the police, the police decisively fired a shot to injure and subdue him.”
Four members of the public were being treated for wounds and were not in a life-threatening condition, the statement added.
The attacker’s motive remains unclear.
Chinese media published videos showing armed police trying to break into a locked room in the hospital. Another heavily circulated social media video showed more than a dozen members of the public running out of the building.
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Mass violent crime is rare in China, which strictly prohibits citizens from owning firearms, but knife attacks do happen occasionally.
Last month, a 23-year-old man in the eastern city of Ningbo died after being violently stabbed on the street in broad daylight. Video of the attack near a bus stop went viral on social media.
In recent years, a string of fatal knife attacks targeting kindergarten and school students have occurred nationwide, carried out by people reportedly wishing to wreak revenge on society.
