Exclusive | Residents in east China town still shocked and puzzled after deadly explosion
Locals are wondering why disturbed young man would have bombed kindergarten, as police are claiming
About 24 hours after a blast at the gate of a kindergarten that killed eight people, the small Chinese township of Feng county was still in shock and puzzlement.
While local police have announced that the explosion was caused by a 22-year-old male, who was among the eight killed, residents are still asking why the young man would have attacked the school and how he managed to get the explosives. Bomb attacks are rare on the mainland as explosives are strictly managed.
Some 65 people were injured in the blast outside the Chuangxin Kindergarten in Feng county, which happened at about 5pm as many parents were waiting to pick up children from the school, witnesses said. No pupils or teachers from the kindergarten are known to have been hurt in the explosion.
“I wonder why he did this?” asked a local woman, surnamed Duan. In her 60s, she still looked frightened when she recalled the explosion that took place on Thursday afternoon. She said she was only about 20 metres away from the blast.
It was so loud that “I felt my eardrum was broken”, she told the South China Morning Post at the Feng County Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, where her ear was being treated.
She was lucky compared to her younger brother, who was closer to the entrance to the kindergarten and was seriously injured in the explosion.