Injuries as car ploughs into crowd outside China school

A driver has ploughed into students and pedestrians outside a primary school in southern China, leaving several people injured, state media says, as worries spread over a recent spate of violent attacks in the country.

CCTV and other state media reported the SUV hit people outside a primary school in Changde city in Hunan province on Tuesday as students were coming in for the day.

Many were injured, CCTV reported and police said they were sent to the hospital "as soon as possible," with none having sustained life-threatening injuries. Police did not provide a detailed number of those hurt.

The police also said a 39-year-old male was arrested in connection with the incident, although it did not explain in the brief statement how the incident occurred, saying only that investigations were continuing.

The incident happened just over a week after a driver rammed his vehicle into a crowd at a sports centre in Zhuhai in southern China, killing 35 people and severely injuring 43 in the deadliest mass attack in China in a decade.

Short video clips circulating on Chinese social media on Tuesday showed young children running into the Changde school compound, shouting for help.

One clip shows a compact, white SUV stopped beyond the school entrance.

At least five people, including a student with a backpack, were lying on the path taken by the vehicle on the narrow street in front of the school, the videos show.

Someone can be heard shouting "Call the police" as a man is surrounded by a crowd and apparently beaten with sticks and rods.

A separate clip shows a man handcuffed and being held down on wet cement by a figure in uniform.

A woman's voice says the person drove to the school by himself and crashed there.

"Why are such incidents happening more and more frequently lately, hit-and-runs, and always involving students? What has happened to society now?," said one commentator on social media platform Weibo.

China's top prosecutors met on Tuesday to discuss sentencing for "major vicious and extreme crimes", as well as those that endanger public security, a statement from the Supreme People's Procuratorate said on its official Weibo social media account.

Police blamed last week's Zhuhai deaths on a male driver angry at his divorce settlement.

Days later, a former student went on a stabbing rampage at a vocational college in eastern China's Wuxi, killing eight people.

In both the Zhuhai and Wuxi cases, little information has been released by police, although from brief statements made public, it appears the two men lashed out with fatal violence against unrelated bystanders after suffering an economic loss.

The lack of detailed disclosures by authorities has stirred discussion on Chinese social media, much of it quickly censored, about a rise in economic and societal pressure in the country and the mental health resources available to deal with it.

Including the Wuxi attack, there have been at least seven high-profile knife attacks this year across China.

China's official crime statistics show rates of violent crime much lower than the global average.

In recent weeks, Chinese officials have rolled out a raft of stimulus measures to revive the economy.

Last week's car attack also prompted an intervention by President Xi Jinping, who urged local police to "strengthen their control of risks" by identifying people at risk of lashing out.