No fewer than seven people have been killed in a rural community in northern California, just two days after a mass shooting at a Lunar New Year celebration near Los Angeles.

The latest bloodshed occurred at two farms around Half Moon Bay, a coastal community south of San Francisco.

San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus said seven people were killed and one wounded in the twin shootings, adding that a 67-year-old Half Moon Bay resident named Chunli Zhao had been taken into custody.

Reports said the dead were Chinese farmworkers, and that Zhao had worked at one of the farms.

Corpus said deputies had been dispatched to two nurseries around Half Moon Bay, a rural spot known for surfing contests and a pumpkin festival, around mid-afternoon on Monday.

Four people were killed at one of the sites and one was critically wounded, while three more fatally wounded victims were found at a second location.

Corpus said children were present at one of the sites.

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“It was in the afternoon when kids were out of school and for children to witness it is unspeakable,” she said.

Corpus said Zhou then drove to a sheriff’s substation in Half Moon Bay, where ABC7 crews captured dramatic footage of him being pulled to the ground by armed officers.

“Zhao was taken into custody without incident and a semi-automatic handgun was located in his vehicle,” Corpus said.

At the second shooting location, a short distance from the mushroom farm where four people were killed, sheriff’s deputies’ cars packed a roadside business plaza, home to shops offering party rentals, landscaping supplies, and other services.

As the new tragedy unfolded, detectives in southern California were still probing what drove an elderly Asian man to shoot dead 11 people gathered for Lunar New Year at a suburban dance hall on Saturday night – before taking his own life as police closed in.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Huu Can Tran, who had been arrested in 1994 for unlawful possession of a firearm, fired 42 rounds in the attack in Monterey Park.

News of a second mass shooting in California in less than 48 hours spread ripples of shock through the state, which has some of the strictest firearm laws in the US.

Saturday night’s mass shooting was the worst in the United States since a teenage gunman in Uvalde, Texas killed 21 people at an elementary school last May.

The Star