Yesterday evening, around 5:45 p.m., a car rammed into a crowd outside a primary school in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province. The footage showed multiple injured individuals, some lying motionless on the ground, with reports of fatalities, although the exact casualties remain unclear. The authorities have censored videos and discussions related to the incident, while sporadic reports from mainland Chinese media referred to it as an “accident.”
According to video clips circulating online and eyewitness accounts, the incident occurred around 5:45 p.m. yesterday in Su Meng Township, Wucheng District, on the street in front of the Su Meng Township Central Primary School in the southern outskirts of Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province. A silver-gray sedan accelerated into the crowd outside the school, during a time when students were finishing school, parents were picking up their children, and regular people were heading home from work, resulting in numerous injuries.
A local resident informed a media outlet that his colleague’s daughter attends the school and was coming out of it when she was struck down. “Her mother was parking the car, and when she finished parking, she saw the child being hit. The child was then taken to the hospital and has not woken up since.” He also mentioned that the vehicle involved in the incident bore a license plate starting with “G.”
China witnessed another incident where a car indiscriminately crashed into a crowd, although mainland media referred to it as an “accident.” Reports indicated that several students who were hit were hospitalized for treatment.
On the afternoon of April 23, a journalist from the mainland media outlet “Urban Scene” tried contacting the Su Meng Township Central Primary School and the Traffic Police Squadron of Wucheng Brigade under the Jinhua City Public Security Bureau but could not get through. Personnel from the Su Meng Police Station under the Jinhua City Public Security Bureau and the Jinhua City Public Security Bureau stated they were unaware of the incident. Similarly, the staff at the Jinhua Emergency Medical Command Center said they had no comments to provide.
When a journalist dialed the phone number of the Su Meng Township Government, the staff confirmed that a “car accident” near the Su Meng Township Central Primary School did occur and was currently under investigation.
Public records show that the Su Meng Township Central Primary School in Wucheng District of Jinhua City, founded in 1927, had 21 teaching classes with around 996 students and over fifty staff members as of 2025.
As for the specific casualties, local authorities have yet to release any relevant information, although online rumors suggest varying numbers of deaths ranging from several to over a dozen, which cannot be verified.
By Wednesday afternoon, the Chinese government had not issued any comments on the incident, and the CCTV had not reported on it. There were no discussions found by a reporter from Da Ji Yuan on Weibo, and the videos on Chinese social media platforms had been deleted.
Da Ji Yuan journalists discovered severe censorship on Douyin. Netizens flooded unrelated videos with comments expressing anger, mentioning “Jinhua’s leadership is amazing,” “The giant all-net cover-up is also amazing,” “Videos can’t be posted at all,” “Covering up the truth, there is no explanation for the public. Sigh…feeling so helpless.”
Videos on WeChat were reported to have been nearly entirely removed after the journalist checked them ten minutes later.
A mother of a child attending the school cautioned against speaking more, fearing being called in for questioning.
CNN reported that amid China’s increasingly severe economic challenges, people are becoming more “desperate and unstable,” resorting to “seeking revenge on society.”
In recent months, several violent incidents targeting the public have occurred in China. On November 11 last year, a car-ramming incident at a sports center in Zhuhai, Guangdong, resulted in 35 deaths and 43 injuries according to official statements. On November 16, a knife attack at Wuxi CraftsmanshipVocational and Technical College in Yixing City, Jiangsu, caused 8 deaths and 17 injuries. On November 19, a suspect drove into a crowd at the entrance of Yong’an Primary School in Dingcheng District, Changde, Hunan, injuring multiple students and parents.