Chinese president Xi Jinping ordered an "all-out effort" to treat the injured and called for severe punishment of a man who rammed his car into people at a sports centre in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai, killing at least 35 people.

China's top leaders have urged "all-out efforts" to treat those injured in a car attack in southern China, one of the deadliest incidents in the country's recent history, as online posts asking what the attack says about Chinese society were censored.

The Zhuhai attack in which a driver in southern China ploughed his car into a crowd of people and killed 35 people, severely injuring dozens more, has put the spotlight on a recent spate of similar attacks in China.