Sixteen children injured in China school shooting
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-10-13 16:20

A man wielding up to five homemade hand guns injured 16 children after opening fire in a primary school in East China' Anhui province, witnesses and state press said.

The man entered the Niutoushan primary school in Liudong township Wednesday morning and began firing his primitive guns as children did their morning exercises in the school yard, Xinhua news agency said.

He then fled the scene and remains at large, it said.

"Sixteen children were injured, but none of them are in danger of losing their lives," a teacher at the school told AFP Thursday, declining to identify herself.

"Nine were lightly injured and seven seriously injured. One student was shot through the lung, some were hit in the head and others in the hands," she said.

According to the local Xinan Evening News, doctors removed six bullets from one student and two from another.

Officials at the local hospital refused to comment on the condition of the injured students.

The teacher identified the main suspect as Liu Shibing, 34, a local who was known to the teachers at the school. Liu had a previous criminal record and appeared to have mental problems, she said.

The Xinan news said the attacker had left some of his guns on the ground near the school gate and had returned to retrieve the weapons to renew his attack when a worker at the school tried to stop him.

After scuffling with the worker, the attacker picked up his guns and fled the scene, it said.