A Chinese man who was refused a loan from his company went on the rampage in a mechanical digger, killing 11 people, including a pregnant woman.
The man, Zhu Hanbiao, drove the excavator into the crowd at a market in the Longgang district of Shenzhen, before police shot him dead when he refused to give himself up, local media reported.
Shoppers screamed and ran for their lives as the man drove directly at them.
Eleven people have been confirmed dead, and at least 10 more were injured during the incident on Monday.
According to police the man was in his 30s and came from Heyuan in Guangdong Province. He drove the digger into the crowded market, where the victims were either speared by the shovels on the huge machine or were run over.
Zhu eventually jumped down from the digger amidst the chaos and was chased by over 100 policemen and security guards. When they caught him he threatened them with a knife, and when he refused to surrender, the police shot him dead.
Reports suggest the man had tried to borrow money from the company he worked for, but the manager was unable to comply because the cashier was not in the office. He beat up the manager before stealing the digger.
Meanwhile the death toll from the collapse of a brick wall at a weekend bazaar in Urumqi, in the Xinjiang autonomous region, has risen to 19.
The 40-metre section of wall surrounding a construction site in Urumqi was apparently toppled by the weight of soil piled against it, a local official said. Twenty-four people injured in Saturday's accident remain in hospital. The contractor who built the wall has been detained.