The bodies of Qiu Xinghua's victims were found in the temple in Hanyin county in the northern province of Shaanxi on July 16, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

Qiu allegedly carried out the attacks out of revenge after having disputes with managers at the temple which he regularly visited, the Shaanxi-based Huashang Daily said on its website.

All of the victims were hacked in the head while they were sleeping at the temple and some of them were disembowelled, the paper said, without identifying who they were.

Police have not been able to capture Qiu after five days of searching for him in the nearby forested mountains, despite seeing traces of his presence.

Authorities have brought Qiu's wife and children to the mountains where they used a bullhorn to try and convince him to turn himself in.

In another major crime incident, Chinese media reported that a man killed his mistress and eight of his wife's relatives, then committed suicide.

Wang Changyi murdered his wife's relatives on July 31 in a village in the southwestern province of Yunnan, the Beijing Times said.

The next day he traveled to another part of the province where he killed his lover. Wang then poisoned himself.

Police said he was upset over a family fight that was caused by the affair with his lover.

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