Thirty people, including 23 children, were injured when a swarm of hornets attacked a primary school in southern China.
The incident took place at Hongxing Primary School in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region's capital Nanning.
Twenty-three children, aged between five and eight, one of their teacher and six villagers were injured in the sudden attack today, said Huang Dewang, the school's headmaster.
Twenty-nine of the injured were hospitalised after suffering stings in the head, neck, hands and feet. Their injuries were not life threatening, Huang said.
The teacher, Li Zhiqiang, said he was resting near a classroom when he heard children screaming that they were being chased by hornets. Failing to drive the hornets away, Li told them to hide under tables.
He stayed outside to try to drive off the insects before he passed out. "Maybe because the hornets are poisonous, I just fell onto the ground and became unconscious," he was quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency as saying.
A hornets' nest was later found on a banyan tree 80 meters away from the classroom. Firefighters later cleared the nest and searched for other nests nearby.
