Residents of a southern Chinese city mourn 35 people killed in a car-ramming attack

ZHUHAI, China (AP) — People in a southern Chinese city paid respects Wednesday to 35 of their residents killed by a Driver who rammed his vehicle into a sports facilityMowing people down while they were exercising.

Police have released little information about the 62-year-old attacker, other than to say the man, identified only by his last name, Fan, was upset over his divorce settlement. He was arrested immediately after the attack as he tried to flee the scene in the city of Zhuhai on Monday evening.

The attack, in which 43 people were seriously injured, took place on the Eve of the Zhuhai Airshow, sponsored by the People's Liberation Army and takes place every two years. China often makes extra Efforts to tightly control information surrounding important or sensitive events.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, residents of Zhuhai laid flowers in honor of the victims in front of the Zhuhai People's Fitness Plaza in the southern province of Guangdong. The police presence was light, but the number of officers later increased. The sports facility was closed until further notice.

Police allowed the public to leave bouquets of flowers just outside the entrance to the sports complex, but volunteers then quickly brought the flowers into the sports center.

“May there be no thugs in heaven,” read one of the bouquets. “Good deeds are rewarded and evil deeds are punished.”

Chinese Authorities pay attention to what is said publicly about major disasters or violence, often including the censorship of eyewitness reports. It took almost 24 hours after the attack for information about the number of victims to be released.

Videos that were quickly censored in China circulated outside the Great Firewall. Most were posted by “Teacher Li,” an artist-turned-dissident who runs an X-account with 1.7 million followers that posts crowdsourced videos about news in China.

Chinese media articles featuring interviews with survivors were quickly deleted on Monday and Tuesday. One of the articles said that among the many injured were elderly people who had joined speedwalking groups.

Zhuhai residents were still processing news of the attack.

“It’s very shocking,” Dong Chilin said. “My husband goes jogging there every evening. I called him immediately. … Luckily none of the people I know were there that day.”

She said her two children have asked their father to stay away from the area for now.

Another woman, who gave her last name only as Guan, said she passed by the construction site around 8 p.m. Monday night but thought it was just a traffic accident. “Of course it was very shocking. It was very terrible.”

Police said their preliminary investigation revealed that Fan was unhappy with his divorce settlement, but did not provide any further information about his divorce or the alleged motive.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for strict legal punishment in a statement on Tuesday evening.

He also called on all local governments to “strengthen prevention and … prevent the occurrence of extreme cases and resolve conflicts and disputes in a timely manner,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

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Wu reported from Bangkok.