By Edward Wong, New York Times, Sept. 9, 2013

BEIJING — A homemade bomb outside a school in the southern city of Guilin on Monday killed at least two people and injured 17, many of them children, according to state news reports.

The two who died in the explosion were a man and a woman, according to the microblog of China Central Television, the main state television network. Of the injured, 10 were children who attended the school, which housed both elementary and secondary grades.

The man who died appeared to have been the bomber, the official news reports said. The bomb was in a three-wheel bicycle, which might have been electric or gas powered [....]

Liu Yuping, deputy director of a local hospital, told China News Service that a 10-year-old boy’s leg had been severed by the blast.

The explosion, which occurred at 7:10 a.m., was certain to raise further questions among parents about security at schools. In 2010, a series of seemingly unrelated school attacks, some fatal, by people armed with knives and other household objects shocked parents across China. In one case, a man attacked children with a hammer and then set fire to himself.

After that round of violence, officials promised to improve security at the country’s schools, but the attacks have not stopped [....]