The day after the incident in which a car crashed into pedestrians at the Sports Center in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, families of the victims expressed shock as they signed paperwork to claim the bodies. They saw that the paper was almost full of signatures, indicating the tragic loss of many lives.
According to the police report on the evening of the 12th, at around 19:48 on November 11, a 62-year-old man named Fan drove an off-road vehicle into the Sports Center in Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai City, plowing into a crowd of people out for a walk or exercise, resulting in 35 deaths and 43 injuries. The reported casualty figures by the police have raised questions from the public.
A report by mainland China’s self-media outlet “A Butterfly” stated that Mr. Hua, who was on duty at the west gate of the Zhuhai Sports Center on the 12th, mentioned that he worked in an office building closest to the scene of the incident. After the incident, he was called by the company leaders to assist and was tasked with warning people not to enter the fenced-off area.
Mr. Hua captured several videos at the scene, each showing numerous people injured and bloodied, with one video showing “more than twenty” individuals on the ground. However, Mr. Hua stated that he did not have information on the overall casualty situation and mentioned that the leaders had instructed not to disclose any information.
According to a report by Hong Kong’s “Sing Tao Daily” on the 13th, the widow of one of the deceased victims, who traveled to the scene for a roadside memorial on the evening of the 12th, revealed that they came from Enping and her husband, surnamed Tan, worked as a hydraulic electrician in Zhuhai. He would also go to the gym at the sports complex every night. As he was not wearing the uniform of the walking team, he was placed at the rear of the group and became one of the most severely affected by the crash.
The widow mentioned that after the incident, their daughter saw a video online showing her father injured and bleeding on the ground. She immediately rushed from her workplace in Zhongshan to search for her husband at the Zhuhai People’s Hospital and the Zhuhai Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. However, it was not until 3 a.m. that the hospitals released the list of admitted patients, with her husband not on it. She then hurried to the Zhongshan Fifth Hospital.
Around 5 a.m., the widow was led to a hospital room and informed by the staff that her husband had passed away. Tearfully, she mentioned that when she claimed the body, she saw her husband with “a pool of blood under his head.”
The widow also disclosed that when her son signed paperwork to claim the body on a piece of A4 paper, he saw that “almost all of it was filled, indicating that many had died.”
An online article mentioned that on the day of the incident, there were six walking teams at the sports center, each comprising forty to fifty members aged between 40 and 70, including retired teachers, catering industry workers, and real estate salespeople.
A surviving member of one of the walking teams stated that over ten people in their team were injured, with some having broken legs and others coughing up blood, describing the scene as “terrifying.” Furthermore, seven to eight members of the team died on the spot, including a friend and the female team leader.
He recounted that initially, only two to three ambulances arrived at the scene, but with the high number of casualties, they were overwhelmed. As more ambulances arrived and a large number of police and firefighters rushed to the scene, doctors worked tirelessly for over an hour. He helped to assist some of the injured onto ambulances until past 10 p.m., when personnel finally left the scene.
The relative of a witness to the incident described that when the injured arrived at the hospital, there was chaos, and they had to wait for two to three hours before receiving treatment. Some of the patients had low blood pressure while waiting and had to be admitted to the ICU. Upon examination, it was found that some patients had internal head injuries, internal organ damage, abdominal bleeding, and multiple fractures throughout the body.