Even on a day dominated by news of a deadly explosion in Tianjin, a tragic mudslide in Shaanxi province and continuing financial turmoil over the currency, China’s online community was riveted on Thursday by a single murder in a wealthy neighborhood in Beijing.

One reason: The victim’s suffering was caught on video.

The woman was stabbed dead by a sword-wielding man in the Sanlitun area of the city on Thursday, police said, in an incident that stunned local residents as footage of the brazen attack spread unchecked across China’s social media platforms.

The assailant, a 25-year-old man surnamed Gao from north China’s Jilin province, is in police custody, Beijing police said in a statement on their verified Weibo account. A French man, whose name and age were not given, was also injured, the statement said.

Man with knife reported to have injured a woman at Sanlitun, Beijing Thu noon. Attacker now controlled by police. pic.twitter.com/usC6ltsBFN

— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) August 13, 2015

The attack took place in broad daylight outside of a Uniqlo store that was the site of an infamous sex video that went viral on the Chinese Internet last month.

According to the Beijing police statement, a preliminary investigation found that the attacker stabbed the two passersby “without cause or reason” at the south end of Sanlitun’s popular bar street, where the Uniqlo flagship store is located. Both victims were taken to taken to hospital. The woman, who was from east China’s Shandong province and whose name was not given, was later proclaimed dead, police said.

Photos and videos – many of them graphic -- circulated on China’s WeChat and Weibo social messaging platforms as news of the Sanlitun attack quickly spread.

In one video, the lone assailant is shown calmly ambling in front of the Uniqlo store’s entrance, holding a long sword in one hand. He then tosses the blade aside and lies down on the ground in front of a nearby group of police officers, who detain him.

At the end of the video, the camera pans over to a wounded woman lying on the pavement. A man is hunched over her blood-stained body, with several bystanders looking on.

--Felicia Sonmez. Follow her on Twitter @feliciasonmez.