Zhu Jun, a 46-year-old guard for Postal Savings Bank of China, walked into the offices of a courthouse in the city of Yongzhou with a machine gun and two pistols, a report on the city government website said.

He then opened fire on the judges as they met to discuss a case, it said.

Zhu was said to have been deeply angered by another court's ruling in his divorce three years ago, which awarded him 20,000 yuan (2,900 dollars) of the assets he held jointly with his wife.

The courthouse where he carried out the shooting was not where his divorce case was heard, it said.

The announcement said Zhu also was depressed after being off work for two months due to an "incurable disease".

The state-run Procuratorate Daily said Zhu, who had only returned to work three days prior to the attack, had just delivered a sum of cash to a bank branch before going to the courthouse with his weapons.

Calls to the courthouse and to the city government went unanswered.

Deadly shootings are extremely rare in China, where private gun ownership is banned. However, some bank security personnel in charge of transporting cash are armed with guns.

The incident followed a spate of bloody attacks on young schoolchildren around China since late March that have left 17 people dead, including 15 students, and scores injured.

Experts say the senseless assaults reveal a China struggling to come to grips with rapid social change following decades of booming economic growth.

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