Police have have identified the man behind Sunday's explosion at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
In a Weibo post, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau said that the attacker was a 29-year-old migrant worker named Zhou Xingbo from Tongren, Guizhou province. They pointed to online gambling debt as one contributing factor which led him to set off the homemade bomb.
According to police, Zhou moved around from job to job in southern China after graduating from high school, eventually ending up at an electronics factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu province. During his stay there, Zhou became addicted to online gambling and lost all his savings.
Prior to the attack, Zhou wrote on WeChat that he “owed money to a lot of people” and that he was going to "do something completely crazy that I will not survive."
On the morning of June 12, Zhou took a long-distance bus to Shanghai and headed to Pudong Airport to carry out his crazy plan. He stuffed firecrackers into a beer bottle and hurled it at a ticketing counter at Check-in Area C in Terminal 2. The glass ejected by the explosion injured four bystanders, including a 67-year-old man, a 64-year-old woman and 53-year-old man from the Philippines. (The fifth victim, believed to be Chinese, sustained minor injuries). Zhou then took out a knife and attempted to kill himself by slashing his throat.
He was later taken away by police and reportedly taken into intensive care, where doctors reportedly performed surgery for the serious neck injuries he sustained. Images of what appeared to be his self-inflicted injuries were circulating on social media after the incident.
An eyewitness at the scene told That's: "[He] lay on the ground for a while before eventually being moved onto a gurney. It took around 20 minutes before medical care professionals arrived and began treating him. He was the only one taken away in a gurney."
Further investigation revealed that police found firecracker residue at Zhou’s temporary apartment in Kunshan.
Meanwhile, airport officials have announced that all passengers will be searched before entering the terminal building as a security precaution, which has led to insanely long lines, according to QQ News. It is now recommended that travelers arrive to the airport at least three or four hours in advance.
[Images via WeChat, QQ News]
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