Officials have said that China's epidemic of stabbing attacks continued Wednesday with an assailant killing seven children and wounding many more at a school.

Authorities said the attack occurred about 8 a. m. at a kindergarten in Hanzhong City in northwestern China's Shaanxi province, the state-run news agency Xinhua has reported.

A local official also said that besides those slain, at least 20 children were injured.

Liu Xiaoming, a local publicity official, said, "The injured have been rushed to hospital."

According to the reports, it was the third bloody rampage in the past few days. On Monday a villager killed two women and injured seven other people, including a 2-year-old child, in northwestern China.

During the weekend a man in another province was charged with killing three members of his family, including his 10-year-old daughter, and five others.

It was further reported that these latest attacks follow a spate of stabbings of schoolchildren and teachers in towns across China in which dozens were killed or injured. The attackers' motives have largely remained unclear.

However, they could be the result of mental stress brought on by the country's rapid social change, a U. S. expert, Joshua Miller of Smith College in Massachusetts, told China Daily. (With Inputs from Agencies)