UPDATE May 10, 2018 1:32pm: The reign of terror is over: Chaoyang police confirmed on their official Weibo account this morning that a yellow-colored dog fitting the description of the attacking animal was captured last night around 10pm near Qingnian Road. No word yet as whether the dog is sick with rabies.

Beijing residents of an east-end Beijing neighborhood have taken to arming themselves with sticks after a stray dog attacked eight people yesterday, the youngest being a three-year-old child.

Police are reminding the public to stay vigilant after a barrage of attacks happened in the Runfengshang and Huafangyicheng neighborhoods, located near Qingnian Road Station on Beijing Metro Line 6 (just a few stations away from Hujialou Station).

The most serious injuries were received by a five-year-old child with bites to his face and legs (shown above), resulting in medical bills described by family members as reaching RMB 100,000.

Eyewitnesses say the attacks were made by a small, yellow-colored dog around 60 centimeters in length, leading to speculation that they were all made by the same animal. Due to its dirty appearance, authorities further describe the dog as a stray.

READ: Dozens of Pet Dogs Killed in Latest Beijing Neighborhood Poisoning

Police have captured 10 stray dogs since the attacks began, but none of them match the description of the attacking dog. A posse of some 30 people have managed to sporadically track down the dog last night and this morning, but have not yet been successful in neutralizing the public safety threat.

With the dog still at large, area residents have taken to arming themselves with crude weapons like tree branches and umbrellas in order to protect their families. One local resident told media outlet Heavy Crimes Unit #37, "Usually only one person comes to pick up the child from kindergarten, but today, there's two, and we've brought a walking stick to protect ourselves."

READ: Canine Conundrum: Unravelling Beijing's Love-Hate Relationship With Dogs

Although their domesticated peers have become popular among affluent middle-class residents, stray dogs are the main culprit responsible for transmitting rabies in China, giving it the second-highest number of reported rabies cases in the world. Currently, 2,000 people die each year from rabies across China, an improvement from 30 years ago when the rate was over 5,000 annually.

In Beijing alone, 27 rabies victims died from non-vaccinated dog bites between 2014 and 2016, according to Beijing Ditan Hospital.

However, even as the rabies threat diminishes, dog bites remain a prevalent danger to the Beijing public. This past Chinese New Year celebrating the Year of the Dog, 3,333 dog bite cases were recorded in Beijing.

According to the reports, none of the victims are said to have contracted rabies.

There are an estimated 2 million dogs in Beijing, both registered and unregistered.

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E-Mail: charlesliu1 (at) qq (dot) com

Twitter: @Sinopath

Images: NetEase