A city in eastern China scrapped an industrial waste pipeline after tens of thousands of anti-pollution protesters ransacked the local government headquarters, clashed with riot police and tore off the shirt of a Communist Party boss.
Computers were smashed, police cars overturned and police officers beaten up. Bloodied protesters were seen leaving the scene of the protest in Qidong, Jiangsu province, an hour's journey from Shanghai, but police rejected rumours that some had been killed.
The demonstration was the latest in a string of protests sparked by fears of environmental degradation and underscores the social tensions confronting the central government as it approaches a once-in-a-decade leadership transition this autumn.
Shouting slogans, the demonstrators began gathering in the city's Yongan Square at 5am, protesting that the waste-water pipeline from a Japanese-owned paper factory would discharge a huge amount of effluent into the sea every year, poisoning coastal waters.
Protesters pulled down the main gate of the government headquarters and rushed inside. They threw documents out of windows and seized luxury cigarettes and bottles of wine from offices. They confronted the city's party boss, Sun Jianhua, in his office, tore off his shirt and tried to get him to wear a red T-shirt with the slogan 'Strongly resist sewage from Oji', a reference to the Oji Paper Group, the company behind the factory and planned pipeline.
Police escorted Sun from the scene. Photographs of him fleeing shirtless from the crowd were widely circulated online.