Students at the university say the victim is a second-year student that had previously made bets on the World Cup, but his identity has not yet been verified.

Eyewitness Xiao Cai said the incident happened yesterday morning at around 10 o’clock. Xiao was on the sixth floor of the front wing of the Weiyi building when she saw the victim on seventh-floor roof of the back wing sitting on a chair and talking on the phone.

Despite being over 50 meters away from her, Xiao said she was able to hear everything the man said because he was in an excited state. According to Xiao, she heard the man say phrases like “Don’t force me” and “Give me two more days.”

Xiao explained what happened next:

He spoke on the phone for over ten minutes. I saw that he stood up after hanging up the phone, and then all of a sudden he disappeared. This made me very afraid. I hurried downstairs and discovered that he had jumped.

The victim was reportedly sent to the hospital, but succumbed to his injuries.

Students at the university revealed in a video interview that online betting is popular among students, especially at World Cup time. After making bets online, transactions can be completed using a third-party e-commerce system like Alipay.

In other World Cup gambling news, authorities in Macau recently busted a World Cup gambling ring worth approximately $645 million.

Related:

• Guangzhou Workers Get Time Off To Watch The World Cup
• Fake Sick Leave Notices Sell for RMB 100 as Fans Stay Home for World Cup
• PRD’s Contribution to the World Cup: Footballs and Condoms

Photo: Dongguan Times

Police arrive at the scene in this image snapped on the camera phone of another student, via Shenzhen Evening News

Mr. Zhuang, a senior (year 4) finance major at Shenzhen University, died instantly after landing on the concrete below his dorm building, Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday. Police said there were no other wounds on his body that gave grounds for suspicion. The university pledged to introduce the necessary measures to prevent a repeat of the incident, such as psychological counselling.

A cleaner said she saw a young man take an elevator up from the 12th floor of the fenghuai （风槐） dorm building where Zhuang lived around the time he is said to have jumped, but she didn’t think anything of it at the time.

Thousands of these, the accepted image of bereavement on Sina Weibo, were posted in reaction to the deaths.

He did not share a dorm with anybody from his course, so both his classmates and his roommates claimed not to have known him well enough to have seen it coming. However, many took to Sina Weibo to post candles in tribute to Zhuang.

Then yesterday, just over 24 hours after the incident, a witness dialled 120 after a female student was found to have jumped off a building at Guangzhou University’s campus. She was dead when paramedics arrived. After forensic examination, police ruled that the death of the 19 year-old Dongguan girl was a suicide, Guangzhou Daily reported on its microblog.

The cause is being investigated.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among China’s youth as they face the prospect of graduating into an unprecedentedly competitive job market, a deeply inhospitable housing market and limited marriage prospects.

The scene at which the Guangzhou University student was found dead, image courtesy of Nandu Daily

In September, City College of Dongguan University of Technology had 5,000 freshmen sign contracts stipulating that the university would not be held responsible in the event of suicide or injury.