A new relaxation instability with complex magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) activities is found in the HT-7 tokamak operational region, which manifests itself in bursts of hydrogen alpha-ray radiations, electron cyclotron emission and soft x-ray (SX) radiations on outer channels, as well as complex MHD perturbations, but without hard disruptions. The MHD modes are identified as m/n = 2/1, m/n = 3/2 and m/n = 5/3 just before the relaxation (m and n are poloidal and toroidal mode numbers, respectively). The Poincaré mapping, according to the measured perturbations of the MHD modes at the edge, is used to show the topology of magnetic field lines. It is found that a stochastic annular belt resulted just before the relaxation due to the m/n = 5/3 island overlapping with m/n = 2/1 and m/n = 3/2 islands. This qualitatively coincides with the results of SX tomography.