China's official Xinhua News Agency says authorities consider the attack by a group of knife-wielding assailants at a train station in southwestern China in which at least 27 people died to be an act of terrorism.


Xinhua did not identify who might have been responsible for the Saturday evening attack at the Kunming Railway Station in Yunnan province. But the news agency said authorities considered it to be "an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack."


Local television station K6 said that several of the attackers were shot by police and that victims were transported to local hospitals. Xinhua says 27 people were killed and 109 others injured.


The Communist Party-run People's Daily reports that China's top police official, Politburo member Meng Jianzhu, is en route to Kunming, an indication of how seriously authorities view the attack.