The Beijing News, Feb 2, 2010

The front page of today's The Beijing News reported the horrific bus attack incident in Tianjin yesterday:

The local government has affirmed that yesterday morning in Tianjin's CBD are there occurred a malicious bus attack incident, the suspect Zhang Yimin (张义民) drove a bus down on many roads hitting and rolling people over. At present there are 9 dead, and 11 injured. The injured includes 4 police.

According the new Binhai (新滨海) district government, at 8 in the morning, the deputy manager of the public utilities company under Tianjin T&B Co. Ltd, Zhang Yimin, and manager surnamed Li got into a disagreement. Zhang used a knife to stab the other and hijacked the company bus, which had “津AB－6398” as its license plate number, driving out of the company compound and continuously knocking people down in the traffic of the CBD area.

These people were driving cars, they were passengers, pedestrians and people directly in contact with the traffic.

Afterward, the police were alerted and immediately sent out over ten police cars and over 10 policemen, in the end capturing Zhang Yimin at the crossroads of Beihai road (北海路) and Number 9 street (第九大街) in Tianjin's CBD district.

The bulletin said that in the process, 9 people were killed and 11 injured, including 4 members of the police, and 3 police cars and many privately owned cars, taxis and motorbikes were hit and damaged.

According to measurements on a map, from Zhang Yimin's company to where he was captured, the closest route was only 8km.

The bulletin showed that after the incident, the municipal committee of Tianjin, the municipal government and the new Binhai district leaders, all showed heavy regard for the matter and went to the scene at their earliest possible time in order to direct the treatment of the injured and deal with the aftermath.

Material open to the public shows that T&B is mainly for managing scheduled buses, conference buses and also for travel buses, the enterprise's registered capital is 7.2 million yuan, they have hundreds of employees and at the moment their assets are 30 million yuan.

The company was established in August 1998, and is under Tianjin T&B Holding Co Ltd and a state-owned enterprise with exclusive investment from the Administrative Committee of Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone.

Investigation
Most of the dead and injured are migrant workers

Yesterday, many netizens thought that it as incomprehensible action for Zhang Yimin to have a disagreement with the leaders of his company, then going on to kill and injure innocent people. The incident occurred during rush hour, and that could be the reason why there was quite a serious incident of injury and death.

She's dead, what are her family going to do?

Last night, outside the Tanggu Hospital (塘沽医院), where the family were waiting, a migrant worker Liu Lanxiu (刘兰秀) had teary eyes when the death of someone from his village from Hebei province's Qiu county was mentioned. Although his third younger brother Liu Lanfeng (刘兰峰) was also injured in the incident, but he still thinks that He Xiangling's (何香玲) death was more tragic.

"She's dead, what will her family do?" Liu Lanxiu said. His third younger brother doesn't work in the same factory as He, but they are from the same village, so they knew each other, Her husband has cerebral thrombosis, there is an ill 70 year old father-in-law and a daughter at school. She earns money with his 17-year-old son in order to support them.

At 7 o'clock last night, in the hall of the Taida hospital (泰达医院) He Xiangling's son Liu Changsheng (刘长生) sat in a chair. His mother is in the morgue, frozen. "The ones hit and killed are all migrant workers like us," he started crying as he talked.

Family members say that city people were hit by police cars

According to the injured Jiang Xuezeng (蒋学增), as a a police car were trying to chase the bus, it hit Jiang and his nephew Ma Dong (马东), causing serious injuries. Jiang Xuezeng's brother said, at the time Jiang was driving a small truck with Ma Dong also in the vehicle. When the police car was chasing the bus, it ran through the traffic lights and hit the truck's operating room causing Jiang to stop breathing when he was sent to the hospital. Ma Dong's neck and cervical vertebra has also been seriously damaged.

But this has not been certified by the police and it's not clear whether the two injured are within the 11 injured that has been made official.

The report goes on to talk about several others who were injured. On the same front page, there is a story about a two-year-old boy in Beijing's Fangshan district (房山区) who is chained up outside as his dad goes working because his mentally-handicapped mom is unable to look after him.