Chinese shares suffered their biggest one-day drop since February 2007 on Monday, renewing fears over the health of the world’s second largest economy.

The market fell by 8.6%, the equivalent of $500bn, with 2,247 companies falling and only 77 gainers. The CSI300 index .CSI300 of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen plunged 8.6 percent, to 3,818.73, while the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC lost 8.5 percent, to 3,725.56 points.

This comes just weeks after fears of a stock market collapse led to government intervention in the form of interest rate cuts, initial public offering suspension and relaxed margin lending. This seemed to lead to some stabilization, with the market up 15% before Monday’s fall.

Bernard Aw, market strategist at trading firm IG, told the BBC that surprisingly weak manufacturing data “added to worries that there could be further weakness in the Chinese economy, after the patch of recent economic data showed signs of stability”.

More than 1,500 shares listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell by their daily downward limit of 10%.