At least two people were killed and 21 others injured in a knife attack at a hospital on Tuesday in China's Yunnan Province, local authorities said, in the latest incident of mass stabbing in the country.

The attack took place at around 11:30 am when a man assaulted people with a knife at a local hospital in Zhenxiong County, the county's public security bureau said.

The injured are being treated in the hospital, and the case is under investigation, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The suspect, identified as a male local villager, was captured in the afternoon, Xinhua reported.

No motive has been given for the attack.

Local media reports said the detained man was carrying a bottle of water and some bread when he was wrestled to the ground by the officers.

So far, little is known about the victims, but police said they are being treated in hospital, the Hong Kong-based South China Post reported.

China, where private gun ownership is illegal for most civilians, has faced a spate of mass knife attacks in public places in recent years.

In August last year, two people were killed and seven others injured after a man with a history of mental illness attacked people with a knife in a residential district in also Yunnan.

In July of that year, six people, including three children, were killed in a stabbing at a kindergarten in the south-eastern province of Guangdong.

Zhenxiong County, situated in Yunnan's northeast, borders Guizhou and Sichuan provinces and, until 2020, was classified as poverty-stricken.

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