NANCHANG: A ball bearing fired from a starting pistol sliced through the air at a technical school last Thursday, claiming the life of an 18-year-old student, local police said on Monday.

Cheng Liang, a student at a technical training school in Yichun, East China's Jiangxi Province, died after being hit in the temple by a steel ball fired from the barrel of a starting pistol that some of his classmates were playing with.

One of the boys, surnamed Huang, accidentally fired the fatal shot, the police told the Xinhua News Agency yesterday.