Passengers on board a Guangzhou subway panicked into a near stampede after a fellow passenger fainted, and another shouted “knife attack!”
The incident occurred on Line 2 between Feixiang Park Station and Sanyuanli Station, just north of Guangzhou Railway Station Line 5 interchange.
One witness said the passengers were like a wave as they swept from one train carriage to the next. Another person at the scene described it this way:
A stampede almost broke out when the passengers at the back of the car began pushing those in front. Many people fell to the ground.
It remains unclear how many people were injured in the incident. Many passengers are said to have fallen during the rush, and medical assistance was reported be on hand to provide aid to victims, which included a woman who was pregnant.
Eyewitnesses at the scene also say hearing “knife attack” shouted only escalated the state of panic among passengers. The rumor quickly circulated online as netizens erroneously passed on the information.
This past April, 12 passengers were injured during a stampede on the Shenzhen Metro when a person passed out in a subway car. In August of last year, passengers on the Shanghai Metro emptied a subway car in ten seconds when an expat passenger fainted.