Two people were killed and 13 wounded yesterday when two blasts ripped through buses running along the same route in Kunming, southwest China.

The attacks came three weeks before the opening of the Olympics in Beijing, which the authorities have said could be a target for terrorist attacks. Such violence is rare in China, which has a reputation as one of the safest countries in the world – in part because of the powers wielded by the police. Police have yet to identify any suspects.

The first explosion rocked a bus just after 7am as it was going through the city. One person was killed and nine were wounded. One resident of a nearby apartment block told The Times: “I just heard one explosion but it sounded huge, several times more powerful than the sound of a tyre exploding. A few minutes later I heard police car sirens and ambulances and I saw the ambulances taking away injured people.

“At the time people didn’t panic. Everyone just seemed to be in shock.”

About an hour later a blast tore through another bus on the same route, killing one person and wounding four. Television footage showed a gaping hole in the side of one of the buses near the front and glass scattered in the street.

A spokesman for the Yunnan province Public Security Bureau said: “According to preliminary investigations, the explosions were cases of man-made, deliberate sabotage.”

One of the dead was Wang Dezhi, a 29-year-old woman from the nearby Sichuan province, who had been working at a sauna in the city. Her husband, Han Guangming, was slightly hurt. The couple had taken the day off work to visit their five-year-old daughter on her birthday. Mr Han said: “My wife is gone and I’m injured. I feel it is the end of the world.”

Police experts were sent to the city from Beijing and reported that the explosive devices were made from ammonium nitrate, a compound ingredient of fertiliser. Witnesses described seeing a huge amount of smoke but saw no flames. One of the injured said that one of the victims died instantly, the body almost split in half by the force of the blast.

China has occasionally witnessed bus explosions staged by disgruntled farmers or laid-off workers wanting to air grievances over poverty, demolitions or corruption. The use of a fertiliser ingredient could make it more likely that a farmer, possibly resentful over the appropriation of land for building houses or for industrial developments, may be behind the explosion.

The Kunming blasts came two days after Yunnan police killed two rubber farmers in Menglian county in a clash in which 41 police officers were injured. The violence was sparked when police tried to arrest five people in Menglian for allegedly attacking a local rubber company in a dispute between farmers and a private company.

Chinese authorities have directed officials to redress grievances of local residents and act on complaints to ensure a “harmonious social atmosphere” in the Olympics period.

The country has, however, struggled to curb unrest. In June 30,000 residents rioted in Wengan, Guizhou province, after allegations spread that police had covered up the rape and murder of a local teenage girl. China says that a serious terrorism threat is posed by Muslim militants in the restive region of Xinjiang, in the north west of the country.

Simmering unrest

January Thousands protest in People’s Square in Shanghai against planned rail extensions. As demonstrations are banned, it is called a sanbu or “walk”. Others gather in a spontaneous “shop” on the main streets. The extension is delayed

June A police headquarters is set alight in a 30,000-strong protest in Guizhou over the alleged cover-up of a teenager’s death. Police arrest 117 people. The head of public security is sacked in recognition of the protesters’ grievances

July Police close a road outside Xinjian elementary school, where hundreds of children died in the earthquake, to prevent parents from protesting. In Deyang hundreds demonstrate, demanding an investigation

Friday Hundreds of migrant workers attack a police station in Zhejiang, eastern China, during three days of unrest prompted by the alleged beating of a man applying for a residence permit

SaturdayTwo protesters are killed and 13 policemen injured in a demonstration by 400 residents in Menglian county

Source: Times Archive

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