A five-year-old boy and his teacher have been killed at an east Beijing kindergarten and the boy's body stuffed in a washing machine in an attack on the school, the Beijing News said Friday.

The boy's body was found with no obvious wounds, but the teacher had been hit on the head in Thursday morning's assault, the newspaper said. Details of events are still vague, but seven teachers and four children are known to have spent the night at Beixin Kindergarten.

Earlier this month, a Chinese primary school teacher stabbed four children to death and wounded 12 pupils and four colleagues in the central province of Hunan.

Last month, a man wielding a knife and homemade bombs attacked 28 children in a kindergarten in the eastern city of Suzhou, just outside Shanghai. Fortunately no one was killed.

On August 4 a janitor wielding a kitchen knife stabbed 15 children and at least two teachers at a kindergarten in Beijing, killing one child.

(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2004)