ZHUHAI, China — People in a southern Chinese city paid tribute Wednesday to 35 of its residents killed by a driver who crashed his vehicle into a sports complex earlier this week, mowing down people while they were exercising.

Police have released little information about the 62-year-old attacker, other than to say that the man, identified only by his last name of Fan, was upset about his divorce settlement and was arrested immediately after the assault in who was trying to flee the scene. Zhuhai city on Monday night.

The attack, which also seriously injured 43 people, took place on the eve of the Zhuhai Airshow, sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army and held every two years. China often makes more efforts to strictly control information about major or sensitive events.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Zhuhai residents laid flowers in honor of the victims in front of the “Zhuhai People’s Fitness Plaza” in southern Guangdong province. The police presence at the scene was light, although the number of officers increased later in the day. The sports complex was closed until further notice.

Police allowed the public to leave bouquets just outside the entrance to the sports complex, but volunteers then quickly moved the flowers inside the sports center.

“May there be no bullies in heaven,” read a message on one of the bouquets. “Good deeds will be rewarded and bad deeds will be punished.”

Chinese Authorities are also very careful about what is said publicly about major disasters or violence, often censoring eyewitness accounts. It took almost 24 hours after the attack until information was made public with the exact number of victims.

Videos, quickly censored inside China outside the Great Firewall, posted by Teacher Li, an artist-turned-dissident who has an X account with 1.7 million followers that posts crowdsourced videos about Chinese news.

Chinese media articles featuring interviews with survivors were quickly removed on Monday and Tuesday.

Zhuhai residents were still processing the news of the attack.

“It’s very shocking,” said one of them, Dong Chilin. “My husband goes jogging there every night. I called him right away… Fortunately, none of the people I know were there that day.”

She said her two children have asked their father to stay away from the area for now.

Another woman, who gave her surname only as Guan, said she passed by the scene at around 8pm on Monday night but thought it was just a traffic accident. “Of course it was very shocking. It was very horrible.”

Police said their preliminary investigation found Fan was unhappy with his divorce settlement, but provided no other information about the divorce or the alleged motive.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for a strict punishment under the law in a statement late Tuesday.

He also called on all local governments to “strengthen prevention and … prevent the occurrence of extreme cases and resolve conflicts and disputes in a timely manner,” according to the official Xinhua news agency.

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Wu reported from Bangkok. Associated Press senior video producer Wayne Zhang in Zhuhai, China contributed to this report.