Thousands of villagers from the Zhuang ethnic group clashed with Han workers over an aluminium plant that natives say dumped the sewage that poisoned their drinking water and flooded 100 homes.
Both Xinhua and local authorities in Jingxi county, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said the clash was over a dispute concerning construction of a road to the plant.
Witnesses said several thousand angry Zhuang from nearby villages had surrounded the county government's headquarters on Tuesday afternoon after smashing equipment at the aluminium plant on Sunday.
Huang An, a Zhuang from Lingwan village, said the local government had mobilised more than 1,000 riot police to quell the protest. 'The road leading to the county government building, which is several kilometres long, was packed with villagers holding slogans, and armed policemen fired into the air to warn the furious protesters,' he said.
At least five of his fellow villagers had been wounded in the confrontation and the figure could rise once casualties from other villages were counted, he said. Photos taken by witnesses showed a large number of riot policemen had sealed off roads in the county and the atmosphere in the streets was tense. The protesters, who say the plant polluted the only source of drinking water for a dozen villages and caused flooding, had painted slogans on their clothes.
The Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said yesterday more than 100 people were injured in the riot and at least 10 vehicles, including a police car and an armoured vehicle, were smashed by angry villagers in the protest. It said the riot continued yesterday morning, with more protesters injured.
A Jingxi county propaganda official said one official had been injured in the riot after villagers had blocked roads and pelted policemen and government officials with stones. 'The confrontation first broke out on Sunday afternoon, when the aluminium plant tried to reconstruct a road next to Lingwan ... Villagers later protested outside the plant and smashed equipment in the evening,' the county said in a statement. 'A protest organised by villagers on Tuesday afternoon blocked the expressway and the county's road traffic.'