Chinese state media reports that suspect was injured after detonating an apparently homemade device

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

A man in a wheelchair has detonated a bomb he was holding inside a terminal at one of China's busiest airports.

The man, named by the official Xinhua news agency as 34-year-old Ji Zhongxing from the eastern province of Shandong., injured himself in the blast that sent smoke billowing through one of the exits in Terminal 3 of Beijing's international airport.

No one else was injured in the incident, which occurred at about 6.30am local time. The news agency showed several medical workers providing emergency treatment, with police officers also at the scene.

Photographs posted on China's Weibo microblogging site showed a dark-haired man apparently screaming and waving a white package in the air before the explosion.

Later images showed the wheelchair on its side with officials treating a man on the floor.

Eyewitness Edward Pinkney, 26, from Leeds who was 100 metres from the explosion, said : "It sounded like the loudest thunder possible, then smoke started coming up through the concourse."

State-run China Central Television reported the man was sent to a hospital. No flights were affected and order has been restored at the airport, it added.

It is not apparent why the man set off the explosive. Police are investigating the incident, Xinhua news agency said.

Some Chinese activists and human rights lawyers later posted online what they said was a letter of complaint that Ji had filed regarding a 2005 incident in which he claims to have been partially paralysed after being beaten by police in Dongguan, Guangdong province.