Police yesterday named a deaf murderer as the chief suspect behind four huge explosions in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang which hospital sources said killed at least 110 people.
A police spokesman in the city said 41-year-old Jin Ruchao, on the run for the murder of his girlfriend, was being sought in connection with Friday's dawn explosions around a complex of cotton factories.
However some workers at the state-owned factories targeted by the blasts said that they believed disgruntled workers carried out the coordinated attacks because of fears over mass lay-offs.
"Jin Ruchao is the main suspect," said the police spokesman, declining to give his name.
The Legal Daily and the China Police Daily carried black and white photos yesterday of Jin along with details of an arrest warrant and a 50,000 yuan (US$6,000) reward.
Jin is wanted for the March 9 killing of his girlfriend Wei Zhihua in Maguan county, in the southern province of Yunan, said the warrant.
The suspected bomber had two rooms in the 15th and 16th dormitories of Shijiazhuang Number Three Cotton Factory's residential area where one of the major blasts occurred, said the papers.
Sun Wanglin, a police official in Manguan County near the Vietnamese border, said that Jin killed his lover after she refused to return home with him to Shijiazhuang, at the other end of the country.
A toll compiled by AFP after contacting nine hospitals in Shijiazhuang on Saturday showed 110 people dead. However the city's Number Three Hospital, where most of the victims are believed to have been taken, refused to comment.
The official Xinhua news agency has given a death toll of 18 which has not been updated for more than 24 hours. Residents in the city have put the death toll as high as 200.
The explosions occurred Friday morning between 4:16am and 5:21am in the provincial capital of Hebei Province, the semi-official China News Service reported.
Chinese state television showed images of scores of police and firefighters sifting through a huge pile of rubble which was a five storey residential building attached to the city's Number Three Cotton Mill.
A second blast cut a swathe through a four-story residence attached to the Number One Cotton Factory which residents said held 24 families.
An official at the Number Three Cotton Factory said it was believed around 200 people died and that many people believed several workers must have been involved in a plot to blow up the buildings.
The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said the chief suspect Jin had been fired from the Number Three Cotton Factory in 1983 for "hooliganism." It said his father survived the blast and had been detained along with other family members.
The center's director Frank Lu said he believed Jin was being made into a scapegoat and that there was no evidence to show he knew how to handle explosives.
The blasts came after Prime Minister Zhu Rongji earlier this week apologized to the nation for an explosion at a school in Jiangxi Province on March 6 which left around 50 people dead, mostly young children.
China has blamed the school blast on a suicidal madman, although parents allege the children were making fireworks in the classroom at the time of the explosion.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft