A villager named Li Chuicai with mental disease detonated the explosion in a primary school building in Waizai County in east China's Jiangxi Province, local police said.

The blast came at around 11 o'clock on Tuesday morning, and it destroyed the school building, and killed 42 and injured 27 people.

The case therefore is a criminal one, local police concluded, adding that evidence in four aspects have been found.

First, the suspect, Li Chuicai, 33, had the very motive, said Xu Xiaogang, deputy director with the Jiangxi Provincial Public Security Bureau.

Police found a notebook and a sheet of paper in Li's home. On some paper it wrote something like "I will sacrifice myself... blast all burn all...at least to kill scores of them...all is over ", which shown clearly that the suspect had the intention to set off explosion in a crowded place.

The words, in logic confusion, reflected that Li was mentally sick. Actually, Li's fellow villagers called him psycho as well.

Second, after a careful examination of chemicals like chlorate left by the explosion, police found that they were the same with those found in Li's home. Li started making fireworks when he was 18 years old, and he is able to make chlorate fireworks on his own.

Third, four witnesses were found who saw Li riding in the direction of the primary school carrying plastic pockets obviously with something in them.

And after Li entered the school, Deng Chengbao and other two teachers and seven students saw the whole process of the explosion that he initiated.

Lastly, autopsy results of Li's body showed that he was at the very center of explosion, which tallies with testimonies given by teachers and students.

Considering that all the material evidence and witnesses' testimonies coincide with each other, experts who joined the investigation concluded that the evidence is adequate to prove Li as the suspect for setting off the explosion.

Aftermath Well Handled

The injured are being rescued and the dead were pacified in Wanzai County.

So far, 22 of the 27 injured are out of danger, and the rest five are given around-the-clock monitoring.

Burial of the 42 dead are being arranged, and pension has been allocated to comfort their families. All insurance have been already distributed to the families of the dead.

Local government is now looking for the site for a temporary school building as the old one was severely damaged in the blast.

Officials said that normal education can be resumed very soon.

It was also decided that all the slightly injured students be given a health check.

The explosion aroused great attention among senior officials. Shu Shengyou, governor of Jiangxi Province, who was then attending the on-going session of the National People's Congress in Beijing, and other leading officials of the related departments at state or provincial level, flew back to Jiangxi to direct the rescue work and handle the aftermath.

(People's Daily 03/09/2001)