12 injured after man starts blaze on bus
Print Edition
A MAN is being held by police after he allegedly set a bus on fire and then threatened people with a knife at a bus station in the southeast Chinese city of Xiamen.
Twelve people on the bus were injured, some in the fire and others as they escaped through windows smashed open by the driver.
According to China National Radio, the man used alcohol to start the blaze on the No. 656 bus around 8am as it was approaching Caitang Station. He then took out a knife and said he was going to kill people.
The driver, surnamed Xu, immediately braked, opened the front door and began smashing open the windows. He also grabbed a fire extinguisher to fight the flames, CNR reported.
One passenger told the People’s Daily website that the fire started in the middle of the bus and the flames leapt up to 2 meters high. Passengers at the back of the bus rushed to the front to scramble out of the broken windows.
“I saw a woman around the age of 20 had her right palm cut by the glass. A middle-aged woman covered her head with her hands, from which I saw blood. A man’s trousers were burnt away and his flesh was showing and another man was burned on the face,” she said.
“I never thought all of us would be able to get out. The feeling of being so close to death was terrifying.”
Everyone thought the man who started the fire had escaped but suddenly he rushed from a toilet, hacking at people randomly. Police managed to subdue him, the website said.
Police say a 63-year-old man surnamed Cai is suspected of having caused the bus fire after an earlier arson attack on a food company during which no one was injured.
Cai, from central China’s Henan Province, is believed to have lost his job at the company on Wednesday over an alleged theft.
One of the injured passengers, a 22-year-old woman, suffered burns to 30 percent of her body while a 69-year-old man had burns to 10 percent of his body. A 26-year-old woman is being treated for a head injury.
Passengers said the fire brought back memories of an incident on June 7, 2013, in which 47 people died and 34 were injured.
Police said Chen Shuizong, one of the fatalities, had started the fire, also in Xiamen, to avenge personal grievances. Notes at his house indicated plans for an arson attack.
In July last year, a bus in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, was set on fire, causing two deaths and 32 injuries. Police said the arsonist was angry about gambling losses.
The same month, suspect Bao Laixu started a fire on a bus in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, in an attempt to “make a name for himself,” police said.
The fire left 32 people seriously injured, including Bao himself.
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