Security

2 dead, 14 injured in bus explosions in Kunming

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn, July 21, 2008 12:14 PM

From GoKunming.com:

Two dead, 14 injured in Kunming bus explosions

Today at approximately 7:05 am a bus running the number 54 route exploded at the Panjiawan bus stop on Renmin Xi Lu, killing one and injuring ten, according to initial Kunming media reports.

Approximately one hour later at 8:05, another bus exploded at the intersection of Renmin Xi Lu and Changyuan Lu, reportedly killing one passenger and injuring four.

As of 11:30 am, no official announcements regarding the explosions have been made by the Kunming police or municipal government...

...A BBS on local internet portal clzg.cn has posted some photos of scenes from after the Panjiawan explosion.

See GoKunkming for further updates.

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There are currently 11 Comments for 2 dead, 14 injured in bus explosions in Kunming.

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Comments on 2 dead, 14 injured in bus explosions in Kunming

Reuters has a line in its article that it "may" be connected to police killing two rubber farmers a couple days ago. No evidence yet though.

Posted by: Chinamatt | July 21, 2008 2:08 PM

Why are you using the headline "Bus bombings in Kunming" at the top of the main page? It may have been a bombing, but until that is confirmed, the headline is needlessly sensationalistic, not to mention misleading. All we know now is that there were explosions -- that is not the same thing as a bombing.

Posted by: Andrew Galbraith | July 21, 2008 2:59 PM

Andrew Galbraith: When two buses explode in one Chinese city in the same day and for the same reason (the explosion is clearly not from the engine, as the photos show) - it's a bombing. In addition, the local police already confirmed the buses were "attacked".

What do you suggest? "Kunming police grapples with public transport crisis", "Two buses malfunction in the city of eternal spring", " Two people die in a freak traffic accident"?

Posted by: Bleeding Heart | July 21, 2008 3:45 PM

Sorry, but it's not a bombing unless it's confirmed as such. It's been confirmed now, but when the story was first posted, it would have been better to just refer to them as what they were — explosions.

Posted by: Andrew Galbraith | July 21, 2008 6:08 PM

My roommate's friend in Kunming said that he heard there were actually 5 explosions, one of which may have been in a supermarket. Anyone to corroborate?

Posted by: Dan | July 21, 2008 8:14 PM

I don't think this can possibly be connected to the clash with rubber farmers 2 days ago. First it was too fast. No one can plan such an attack so fast. Even making a bomb takes longer than that. Second why would they take their anger out on normal people? If it is the police they hate, they would have blow up a police station or a police car or anything related to the authorities.

Posted by: anon | July 22, 2008 6:38 AM

Anon, you seem to *know* that bomb making is time-consuming? Don’t draw too much attention to yourself, eh ;-)

Whilst this would be an unprecendented departure for angry Chinese farmers, you ought to concede that groups with a grievance generally don't target their nemesis directly or take great pains to avoid civilian casualties when drawing attention to their cause.

Perhaps a lone nutter? (yeah, yeah, >1 blast but he could have walked around town..)

Whatever.....I only caught this story today but what I find more interesting (revealing, perhaps?) is that there's no hullabaloo about "splittist/criminal elements" or references to the Games.

In fact searching for "blast & Kunming" produced no results on Xinhua?!?

*China Daily has a few more details in Bus blasts rock Kunming Kill 2

References therein to a (similar?) blast in Shanghai & the military nature of the compound used, but it’s halfway down the front page - no photos. No fuss.

The fact that the British are now anti-Beijing Duck seems more .....news-worthy. A dead-cert for mobilising the wu mao dang?

Oh, and I notice the Kunming story is under their Language Tips section (???) with a helpful ESL-type audio & a reading comprehension quiz at the bottom of the article too. Make of that what you will...

*sorry if I didn't HTLM that link properly.

Posted by: puzzled | July 22, 2008 1:06 PM

Evidently somebody in Kunming sent the following text message warning around 5:30 am before the bombings:
“蝼蚁总动员……希望收到此短信的市民，不要在明天早上乘坐54、64、及84路工（公）交车……”
The Guardian translates it into English as:
"The general mobilisation of ants... (I) hope citizens receiving this message will not take bus lines 54, 64 and 84 tomorrow morning,"

Phoenix_Chinese

Guardian

Posted by: Spelunker | July 22, 2008 2:59 PM

Good digging Spelunker, how did you get the Guardian link?

Did you just see the tickertape zip by as you were looking at Sports? Their search function doesn't seem to pick up feed articles...

A lesson there for all, Dont be so anti- or worse still, anty.

(Oh merde! I sprayed a load of them in the kichen last night)

No seriously I'm gonna scan chinese SMS's before deleting from now on.

(must imprint character for ant..must imprint character for ant..must imprint character for ant..must imprint character for ant..)

Posted by: puzzled again | July 22, 2008 4:20 PM

Kunming police chief Du Min (who is also the city's vice mayor) is now saying reports of any text message warning are rumors.
Du Min also says the Kunming bus explosions have no proven links to the Yunnan rubber farmers or to any anti-Olympics terrorism.
This latest news is currently being reported in Hong Kong media as well, including "Ming Bao".

Here are the relevant links:

English

Chinese

Posted by: Spelunker | July 22, 2008 9:57 PM

LATEST UPDATE:
The first photo of the text message just appeared on Shanghai's Oriental Morning Post and Sina.com from 2 Oriental Morning Post reporters based in Kunming (Zhou Wen Tian and Zhao Jing):

http://www.dfdaily.com/node2/node1430/userobject1ai104308.shtml

http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2008-07-23/062814204038s.shtml

Let's see what Kunming police chief/vice mayor Du Min says at the next press conference!

Posted by: Spelunker | July 23, 2008 1:26 PM