A village in Central China's Henan Province was the scene of drama and tragedy on Wednesday, after a local man killed two elderly villagers and took 19 primary school students hostage.

Six or seven of the young children were injured and required hospital treatment.

Yang Xinlong, a resident of Luoying, a village in the south of the province, hacked an old woman to death with a kitchen knife at approximately 11 am, before turning the knife on an old man, who died later in hospital.

Yang then headed to the local school and entered a classroom containing 19 children. The teacher was not in the room at the time.

Police were called and after a period of approximately 3 hours a marksman shot him in the arm, enabling officers to subdue him, according to Zou Baoshen, a police officer involved in the operation.

Yang is now being treated in hospital and will be arrested upon recovery.

The cause of Yang's frenzy is still under investigation, but Zou said villagers believe Yang had become mentally unstable.

Yang, who Zou said was "around 37 or 38 years old," was a local resident of Luoying. He has a son, who is studying outside the area, and a wife, who is working elsewhere.

His elderly mother lives in the village and his father died when he was young, Zou said.

Yang went to work in a city in the province, the exact place is not known, about 1 year ago but returned home approximately two weeks ago to repair his house.

Wang Huaiqing, an old man from Yanying, a village 3 kilometres from Luoying, said his 10-year-old granddaughter, Tian Liting, who went to the primary school in Luoying, was among those injured.

"Nobody imagined this could happen," Wang said. "The teacher of her class happened to be out of the room at the time.

"She (the granddaughter) was slashed on the forehead and is still in the hospital."

Wang said Yang was at one point his assistant when he was the head of Yanying Village over 10 years ago.

"I didn't sense that he had any mental problems at that time," he said.

The school, which has more than 100 students from several surrounding villages, was closed after the attack.

There was no indication when classes would resume.

Wang said: "No one dares to send their children there now."

The shocking violence was the second deadly attack in a month in the province. Three children were killed in an arson attack in a kindergarten in the city of Gongyi on May 8.

Source: China Daily