Seven children and two adults hacked to death in latest violence against schools and nurseries

An attacker with a meat cleaver hacked seven infants and two adults to death in north-west China today despite police efforts to stem a wave of school killings that has terrified parents across the country.

A further 11 children were injured in the attack at a nursery in Hanzhong city, Shaanxi province, which took place at 8am, soon after the start of school. A resident said most of the children were aged between two and four. The alleged attacker Wu Huanmin, 38, killed himself, according to the Xinhua news agency.

One local man, Zheng Xiulan, said the assailant had previous links with the nursery and had been in conflict with its owners. "Only about two of the children in the kindergarten were not injured, but I don't know how many died in the end," Zheng said. "There was blood everywhere ... I don't know why he did it."

Chinese media showed infants being taken to the local hospital's intensive care unit. Two are in a critical condition.

Since March there have been at least six attacks on nurseries and schools resulting in 18 murders, two suicides, an execution and more than 40 children being injured by cleavers, knives and hammers.

The cluster of killings shocked the nation and prompted the government to order tighter security at education institutions.

They strike an especially deep chord in a country where most urban families are allowed to have only one child, said Yang Dongping, an expert on education at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

"Of course we're scared," said a resident of a village near the latest attack, who gave only her surname, Li.

"We've all heard about it. I also have grandchildren, but they're already at primary school. Everybody has to wonder why there are people who can do this."

Hanzhong city had put 2,000 police and security guards on patrol around local schools, an official said.

The motive for the assault remains unclear. Several previous attacks were carried out by people with diagnosed psychological problems, prompting questions about China's healthcare system.

The soul searching has spread via the internet, with many netizens expressing anger at the media for spurring copycat killings, while others expressed unease about instability caused by social change.

"This means our society has come to an extremely dangerous edge," wrote a poster under the name Dahanzhizisun on the Baidu Tieba discussion board. "Our government must wake up. It is not enough to take temporary measures like upgrading equipment or arranging police patrols around schools. If we only pay attention to these shallow causes, we will not solve the original problem and this kind of thing will happen again."

Others expressed grief that children had also been the victims in recent years of a tainted milk scandal and poorly built schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake.

"We must ask ourselves why these things keep happening," wrote the blogger Wu Jianzheng. "Enough is enough. If we do not improve then Chinese people will die without sons."