‘At first I thought it was just someone fighting, but then I saw blood’
Print Edition
Terrorists attacked people in the square and ticket hall of Kunming Railway Station at 9:20pm on Saturday, killing at least 29 civilians and injuring more than 130 others.
A Xinhua news agency reporter at the scene said the injured people had been rushed to more than 10 local hospitals for treatment.
A doctor with the Kunming No. 1 People’s Hospital said that medical workers were busy treating the injured.
Reporters at the hospital told of seeing a dozen bodies and said that by midnight Saturday night more than 60 victims had been sent to the hospital.
Liu Chen, a 19-year-old student from Wuhan City in central China’s Hubei Province, had been traveling in Yunnan and was with a friend at the station to get tickets for the tourist city of Lijiang when the attack started.
“At first I thought it was just someone fighting, but then I saw blood and heard people scream, and I just ran,” Liu said.
At the No. 1 People’s Hospital, Chen Guizhen, a 50-year-old woman, said her husband Xiong Wenguang, 59, was killed in the railway station attack.
“Why are the terrorists so cruel?” she cried, holding her husband's blood-stained ID card in hands shaking with emotion.
The couple, both farmers from the Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, had just bought tickets to the eastern province of Zhejiang where they were due to start new jobs.
“I found his ID card on his body. I can’t believe he has just left me,” she said in tears.
Yang Haifei, a Kunming resident, said he was attacked and sustained injuries to his chest and back.
Yang said he was buying a ticket when he saw a group of people rush into the station, most of them dressed in black, and start attacking others.
“I saw a person come straight at me with a long knife and I ran away with everyone,” he said, adding that people who were slower were seriously injured.
“They just fell on the ground,” he said.
At the guard pavilion in front of the station, three victims were crying. One of them, Yang Ziqing, told Xinhua they were waiting in the station square for a 10:50pm train to Shanghai, but had to run when a knife-wielding man suddenly came at them.
“My two friends’ husbands have been rushed to hospital, but I can’t find my husband, and his phone went unanswered,” Yang sobbed.
Pictures posted on Weibo show police officers patrolling the station. Gruesome images also show bodies covered in blood and doctors helping to transport the injured to hospital.
Weibo user “HuangY3xin-Dione,” who was dining in a restaurant near the railway station, said she was “scared to death” when she saw a group of men in black carrying long knives and chasing people.
The security management bureau under the Ministry of Public Security called the attack a “severe violent crime” at its official Weibo account.
“No matter what motives the murderers hold, the killing of innocent people is against kindness and justice. The police will crack down the crimes in accordance with the law and without any tolerance. May the dead rest in peace,” it read.
Zhang Yumin, 59, a retired cashier from Beijing, was due to fly to Kunming yesterday with her husband for a sightseeing tour. She said she was not going to change her schedule despite the attack.
Kunming Railway Station, situated in the downtown area of the capital city of Yunnan, is one of the largest railway stations in southwest China. It was put into operation in 1958.
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