Multiple injuries are feared after a car was driven into a crowd of people outside a primary school in China’s southern Hunan province.

State media said “several students and adults were injured and fell to the ground”, and several people were hospitalised, but a police statement later said there were no life-threatening injuries.

The driver of the vehicle – identified as a white SUV – was caught by parents and school security officers and handed over to police.

This is the third attack on a crowd in China in a week, and it has fuelled concerns about public safety.

“About a dozen people were hit, some of them seriously, but luckily the ambulance came very quickly,” Mr Zhu, a parent of one of the children at the school, told the BBC.

He said he heard the attack just as he was leaving the school premises, after dropping off his eight-year-old.

“Six or seven parents had forced the car of the person who hit others to stop. Even the security guard was knocked down. The guard is quite old, in his 70s or 80s, and couldn’t do much,” he said.

The school has been identified as the Yong’an Primary School in Dingcheng District in Hunan province.