HONG KONG — Chinese authorities moved Wednesday to quell public outrage over the situation in the country. the deadliest massacre in a decadeas well as the delay in his declaration.

Flowers and other offerings were removed almost immediately after they were placed at a makeshift memorial in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai, where 35 people were killed Monday evening when a car plowed into a crowd of people making exercise in front of a sports center.

The initial statement from authorities said the driver was arrested at the scene and the injured were taken to hospital. The incident was downplayed in Chinese state media. It was only almost 24 hours later, on Tuesday evening, that authorities reported the death toll from the attack, which also injured 43 other people.

Chinese state media reported that President Xi Jinping had ordered “all-out efforts” to treat the injured and that the perpetrator be “severely punished in accordance with the law”.

Amid growing public outcry, discussion of the attack appeared to be muted on China’s heavily censored social media platforms, with videos and other posts continually deleted.

It is the latest in what appears to be a rise in violent crime in China, although it is difficult to know because there is no publicly available data.

In a country where opportunities to express dissent are limited, such attacks can be disconcerting for China’s ruling Communist Party, which perhaps values ​​social stability more than anything else and may fear that they do not reflect the results of a political conflict. economic slowdown he finds it difficult to remedy it.

The suspect in the Zhuhai attack, a 62-year-old man identified only by his surname Fan, was reportedly upset about the division of property after his divorce. He was in a coma after injuring himself with a knife in his car, police said, and could not be questioned.

Lynette Ong, a distinguished professor of Chinese politics at the University of Toronto, said it would not be surprising if local officials in Zhuhai were punished or removed from office, “because incidents like this are classified as destabilizing and as a threat to social stability.

She said the attacks were symptoms of a “repressed society” that is more tightly controlled under Xi, who has increased online censorship and kept the country under strict “zero Covid” measures for three years.

Combined with personal trauma and increasing economic hardship, “people reach a boiling point and they go out and commit extraordinary and serious violent crimes,” said Ong, who is also a senior fellow at the Asia Society.

The attack on Zhuhai, a city of 2.5 million inhabitants, took place on the eve of a major air show held there every two years and where China launched a new stealth fighter jet Tuesday. There is no indication that the two events are linked.

But the sensitive timing of the attack could be one reason for the delay in reporting the death toll, said Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studies Chinese media and censorship. Local officials may have been waiting for guidance from Beijing, he said.

Posts related to the attack appear to have been censored on Weibo, China’s X-rated platform, where they ranked only 11th among trending topics as the death toll was reported Tuesday. As of Wednesday evening local time, it was not among the hot topics at all.

Censorship is “very common” after such incidents, Fang said.

“The government wants to control the discourse and ensure that public support for the regime is not affected,” he said.

Many commenters deplored the driver’s actions.

“Those who attack society are truly evil. If you have a grudge, confront the person directly. Why harm innocent bystanders? read a comment on Weibo.

Although the identities of the victims of the Zhuhai attack have not been revealed, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that there were no foreign nationals among the victims.