Beijing: A grandmother cradling a screaming toddler, within centimetres of a woman's prone body, her clothes burnt off.

The images from the immediate aftermath of an explosion at a kindergarten gate in eastern Jiangsu province, as parents arrived to collect their children, have horrified China.

Investigators say a homemade bomb was used.

The suspect, a 22-year-old identified as Xu, is among the dead, the Xuzhou city government said.