Police said a series of 17 parcel bomb explosions that killed seven people and wounded dozens more in southwestern China were not "terrorist acts", as another blast rocked a town in Liucheng county in Guangxi province.
A six-storey apartment building was damaged in the attack on Thursday, which is national day in China, the start of a week-long holiday, in what appeared to be an attack by a local citizen with a grievance against the government.
Photographs from Liucheng showed scenes of devastation after the powerful blasts, including a shattered apartment building, a badly damaged supermarket and streets strewn with glass and debris.
A 33-year-old suspect surnamed Wei, a quarry worker from Dapu township, was arrested in connection with the explosions, according to a report in The Paper.
"I was sitting in my shop when I heard a sudden loud bang. I was in shock . . . my hair was flying in the air from the shock waves," Li Acheng (30), owner of a fruit store 350 metres from the collapsed building, told the South China Morning Post newspaper.
“Some windows in my shop broke. I walked outside to see what had happened and was almost hit by a falling window from the third floor. I saw half of a building nearby collapse. We were all very shocked and thought it might be an act of terrorism. All shops were closed and the town is under curfew with police guarding every street . . . it was very scary with so many attacks in just over an hour.”
Police said the attacks were related to a “criminal case”.
Hired couriers
The suspect allegedly hired couriers to deliver packages with the explosives to at least 13 different addresses in the city, targeting major public buildings such as a prison, a train station, a shopping mall and government offices. However, some of the explosive packages appear to have been detonated by remote control.
Police said they had found 60 suspicious packages and that delivery services in the area were suspended.
Similar attacks happen from time to time, where perpetrators bearing a grudge against the authorities carry out acts of violence against state targets.
The government is tightly controlling information about the explosions, and users of the Weibo and WeChat social media services have been told to stop posting messages and photos. Many posts related to the incident were taken down soon after they went up.
Media authorities sent out a directive ordering news organisations to only use coverage from the official news agency Xinhua and not to use online material from Weibo or WeChat.
