The 2024 Zhuhai Car-Ramming Attack

Shortly before 8 p.m. on November 11, 2024, a vehicle entered an area outside a sports center in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, where people were exercising. Authorities later established that driver Fan Weiqiu had deliberately targeted the crowd. The attack became one of China's deadliest incidents of intentional public violence in years.

The attack

Official Chinese reporting states that 35 people were killed and 43 were injured. International reporting, including the Associated Press, independently carried the same official casualty figures. Reliable public sources did not provide a complete verified list of the victims' names, so this file does not attempt to reconstruct one from social media or unofficial posts.

The scale of the casualties prompted an immediate national response. The Ministry of Public Security ordered a rapid investigation, while senior judicial authorities later cited the case when discussing prosecution of particularly serious violent crimes.

Fan Weiqiu

Fan Weiqiu was 62 at the time of the attack. Police and the later court judgment linked his actions to anger over his divorce and dissatisfaction with the division of property following the breakdown of his marriage.

That motive is presented here as an investigative and judicial finding, not as a justification. The court described the conduct as intentional and found the consequences exceptionally severe.

Trial and conviction

On December 27, 2024, the Zhuhai Intermediate People's Court tried Fan and convicted him of endangering public safety by dangerous means. He pleaded guilty. The court imposed the death penalty and deprivation of political rights for life.

The judgment emphasized the number of deaths and injuries, the intentional nature of the attack and the grave social harm. Family members of victims and members of the public attended the proceedings, according to state and international reporting.

Supreme People's Court review

Under Chinese law, a death sentence requires review and approval by the Supreme People's Court before it can be carried out. Xinhua reported that the Supreme People's Court approved Fan's sentence.

This review step is important to the case's final status: the December trial judgment was not treated as an execution order by itself. The punishment became executable only after the required top-court approval.

Execution

Fan Weiqiu was executed in Zhuhai on January 20, 2025. Xinhua reported that the Zhuhai Intermediate People's Court carried out the execution under an order issued after Supreme People's Court approval, with local prosecutors supervising the procedure.

The Associated Press independently reported the execution and identified the same casualty toll. Unlike cases in which a death sentence remains pending, the judicial outcome here is complete: conviction, top-court approval and execution have all been publicly documented.

Public-safety response

In the months after the attack, China's Supreme People's Procuratorate cited the Zhuhai case as an example of expedited handling of an especially serious violent crime. Officials also described increased attention to public patrols and earlier intervention in social disputes.

Those policy statements are part of the documented aftermath, but this file does not generalize them into claims about the causes of unrelated crimes. The facts established in Fan's case remain specific to his attack and prosecution.

Timeline

1. November 11, 2024
   Attack outside the sports center

   Fan Weiqiu deliberately drives into people exercising outside the Zhuhai Sports Center. Thirty-five people are killed and 43 injured.

2. November 2024
   Investigation

   Police investigate the mass-casualty attack and authorities publicly identify Fan as the suspect.

3. December 27, 2024
   Conviction and death sentence

   The Zhuhai Intermediate People's Court convicts Fan of endangering public safety by dangerous means and sentences him to death.

4. January 2025
   Top-court approval

   The Supreme People's Court approves the death sentence.

5. January 20, 2025
   Execution

   The Zhuhai Intermediate People's Court carries out the sentence under the execution order.

Current status

Solved / adjudicated; sentence carried out. Fan Weiqiu was convicted of the Zhuhai attack, received a death sentence approved by the Supreme People's Court and was executed on January 20, 2025.