Boston Marathon Bombings: Lu Lingzi, Boston University grad student, ID'd as third fatality
(CBS/AP) BEIJING - The third victim who died from the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday was identified by a Chinese newspaper as Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old graduate student studying statistics at Boston University.
PICTURES: Boston bombing victims
PICTURES: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line
Chinese officials said one of their nationals was killed in the attack, but Chinese and U.S. authorities did not release a name in accordance with the wishes of the victim's parents. However, state media and long-time acquaintances have identified the victim as Lu from the northeastern city of Shenyang.
An editor of her hometown newspaper, the Shenyang Evening News, said Lu's father confirmed her death when reporters visited the family. The editor declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to foreign media.
The reports have drawn an outpouring of comments and condolences from friends and strangers, including nearly 20,000 comments as of Wednesday on Lu's account on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese social media website. She often shared photos of her home-prepared meals on the website as she learned how to live on her own abroad.
Her former neighbor in Shenyang, Zhang Xinbo, lamented how the news brought home the tragedy of what he had considered a faraway event.
"I saw her grow up, and a few scenes from the past are flashing through my mind. Now, she's becoming a girl, a bit Westernized, but a loud bang has changed everything," he wrote on his own Sina Weibo account. "I think of her loved ones, and I don't know how they are coping with this painful news, while still searching for any thread of hope."
Many comments reflect a growing awareness that the burgeoning number of Chinese students studying abroad has opened them up to dangers ranging from mundane street crime to terrorist attacks.
"Nearly 12 years after Sept. 11, more and more people have realized terrorists are the global enemy. They not only attack Americans but also Chinese, regardless of nationality and race," the well-known blogger and author Li Chengpeng wrote on his microblog site.
Chinese are the largest contingent of foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities. Last year, nearly 200,000 Chinese were enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher education, and Massachusetts had almost 10,000 Chinese students on its college campuses, according to the Institute of International Education.
The detonations near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 170. Zhou Danling, another Chinese student from Boston University, was seriously injured but in stable condition at a local hospital, Chinese authorities said. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said a student from Chengdu was among the gravely wounded.
Lu's former high school teacher, Yang Yongkun, told the Shenyang Evening News that Lu had left a deep impression on him.
"This child is particularly smart and simple," Yang told the newspaper.
According to Lu's profile on LinkedIn, she was awarded "excellent student" at the Beijing Institute of Technology, where she graduated last year. It said she held jobs and internships at the Beijing offices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu consultancy and at Dongxing Securities Co. during her undergraduate years and spent a semester at the University of California Riverside.
Complete coverage of Boston Marathon bombings on Crimesider
