A man armed with a knife killed at least five people and wounded 15 others in eastern China, reports said Sunday.

The police have arrested the suspect. The reason for the attack was not immediately known, Global Times said.

The attack was in Anqing, Anhui province, 430 kilometers west of Shanghai, state-run television CCTV reported.

According to a statement by the Anqing District Police Station on its Weibo social media account, a report was received that a man had stabbed pedestrians on the street with a knife late Saturday afternoon.

Authorities attended and the injured were hospitalized.

Meanwhile, a blood bank in Anqing said its reserves were low and called for donations, a local newspaper reported.

CCTV said the suspect, a 25-year old unemployed man, was "angry."

China bans the sale and possession of firearms, and mass attacks are usually carried out with knives or homemade bombs, The Associated Press reported.

Violent crime has increased in China in recent years as the country's economic boom has created a larger gap between the wealthy and the poor.

In June 2020, a school security guard injured at least 39 people at a kindergarten in southern Guangxi using a knife. The attacker was sentenced to death.

Last December, a man killed at least seven and wounded seven others in a knife attack outside a sauna and bathhouse in northeastern China.