Four people were killed and 22 others injured when a student went on a bloody rampage in an MRT train in Taipei, Taiwan Wednesday.

21-year-old Cheng Chieh, a student at Greater Taichung's Tunghai University, purchased two knives and, after boarding a train from Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station, began randomly stabbing people around him.

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The four victims who died were a 47-year-old woman, a 62-year-old woman and two men aged 20 and 30. Officials stated that the four had lost all vital signs before being rushed to New Taipei City Hospital's Banciao Branch, the Taipei Hospital and the Far Eastern Memorial Hospital respectively.

Eyewitnesses said that Cheng began stabbing everyone around him with a 30-centimeter long knife without saying a word, causing passengers to flee to the back of the train.

Cheng carried out his attack after the train left Longshan Temple Station and headed to Jiangzicui Station - a two minute journey and the longest in the entire Taipei Metro System.

Once the train arrived at Jiangzicui Station, the assailant was apprehended and arrested by police with the help of several other passengers.

Cheng had been planning a killing spree ever since he was a junior in high-school and had originally told a friend that he would commit the crime once he graduated from college. However, just last week he decided to carry out his plan on Wednesday, officials said.

Police stated that during questioning Cheng showed no signs of regret and reportedly has no medical records of any sort of mental illness. He did show a blood-alcohol level of 0.04 mg/L although it is not clear how the alcohol content in Cheng's system affected his actions yesterday.

This is the first deadly attack on an MRT train in Taipei ever since the commuter system went into commercial service in 1996.