China knife attack: Five stabbed to death and attacker shot dead by police

Six people have died after a market dispute erupted into a deadly attack

Investigators work at the crime scene near a victim's body (C) where attackers armed with knives killed five people in Changsha, central China's Hunan province on March 14, 2014. (AFP)

Five people in China have been stabbed to death and their attacker shot dead by police, authorities have confirmed.

The deadly attack occurred following a dispute involving market vendors, according to reports from Changsha, leading to one vendor and four passersby being stabbed.

Police shot dead one assailant, the official Xinhua news agency said. One suspect in the incident worked as a bread vendor and was involved in an argument with a customer, traffic radio in Hunan province said on its official Weibo microblog, citing the Changsha police.

Xinhua said a knife fight broke out between businessmen Hebir Turdi and Memet Abla - whose names suggest they are ethnic Uighurs from Xinjiang - at a market mid-morning.

"Abla was hacked to death by Turdi, who later stabbed four passers-by as he ran away. Police shot Turdi, killing him. Two of the passers-by died at the scene. The two others died in hospital," the agency added.

The killings in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, come two weeks after a knife attack in another southern city involving members of the ethnic Uighur minority from the far west region of Xinjiang.

Over 10 knife-wielding assailants stormed through a railway station in south-west China in that attack, killing 29 and injuring 143, in what officials said was a terrorist attack by ethnic separatists from the far west of the country.

Additional reporting by Reuters