Police in northeast China have detained a man who allegedly plowed his SUV vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, killing two and injuring 12, after he had been drinking.
Zhang Xijun, 50, was detained after the incident that occurred at 6 p.m. Wednesday at a night market in Jixi City, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, said a city police spokesman Thursday.
Police said Zhang hit a pedestrian, injuring his right foot, as he drove his Land Rover past the crowds.
The vehicle was immediately stopped by bystanders, and Zhang allegedly quarreled with the injured man.
He was then alleged to have turned the wheel and accelerated about 10 meters forward into the crowd, killing two people.
Medical workers took seven of the injured to hospital and four were still being treated on Thursday, but their injuries were not life-threatening, a hospital official told Xinhua.
An initial police investigation found Zhang, an employee of Jixi Coal Mining Machinery Limited, in Jixi, more than 400 km east of the provincial capital of Harbin, was driving a borrowed vehicle.
It is the latest in a series of controversial pedestrian deaths in China. On Tuesday, a 16-year-old girl was killed by a suspected drink-driver on a pedestrian crossing in Hangzhou. A 20-year-old drag racer was jailed for three years last month for causing the death of another young man in the same city in May.
Early last month in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, police detained an allegedly drunk driver who lost control of his vehicle, leading to the deaths of five people, including a pregnant woman.
(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2009)
