SHANGHAI - At least two people were reported injured in a knife attack in Shanghai's People's Square on Thursday afternoon, Chinese media reports said.

According to local media reports, the attack occurred at around 12.20 pm in a busy tourist spot in People's Square. Witnesses said a traffic assistant and a passer-by were stabbed in the attack.

Police managed to apprehend the attacker and the two victims did not suffer life-threatening injuries.

Photos posted on social media showed police surrounding the attacker as he was pinned down in the street.

The cause of the attack was unclear.

Violent crime is rare in China compared with many other countries, but there have been a series of knife attacks in recent years.

Last month, knife-wielding attackers slashed and stabbed people at a railway station in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, wounding at least nine before police shot dead one of the suspected assailants and arrested another.

In March last year, a mass stabbing at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming shook China when 29 people were killed and about 140 more were wounded.