BEIJING (AFP) - A knife-wielding attacker wounded 37 pupils and two adults at a primary school in southern China on Thursday (June 4), officials said, with local media identifying a security guard as the perpetrator.

All the victims, including teaching staff, were sent to hospital but were not in a life-threatening condition, the authorities in Cangwu county, Guangxi region, said.

The incident at the Wangfu Central Primary School happened at 8.30am when children would normally arrive for class.

The attacker, reportedly aged around 50, is "under control", the government said.

"Thirty-seven students suffered mild injuries and two adults suffered more severe injuries. All of them were sent to a hospital for treatment, and none of their lives are in danger," it said.

Schools in the region had only reopened in May after being closed for months because of the coronavirus outbreak.

A number of schools in China have been hit by attacks in recent years, forcing the authorities to step up security amid calls for more research into the root causes of such acts.

In November, a man climbed a kindergarten wall in south-west Yunnan province and sprayed people with a corrosive liquid, wounding 51 of them, mostly pupils.

Last September, eight schoolchildren died and two others were wounded in a "school-related criminal case" in central Hubei province. A 40-year-old man was arrested.

A knife-wielding man killed two people and wounded two others at a primary school in central Hunan province in April last year.

In April 2018, a man killed nine middle-school students as they were returning home, in one of the deadliest knife attacks seen in China in recent years.

A homemade explosive killed eight people and injured dozens others outside a kindergarten in Jiangsu province in June 2017.