Broken beer bottles, bricks, stones and masks used to protect protesters from tear gas littered the streets of the township of Haimen, in Shantou, eastern Guangdong, yesterday as several thousand angry residents staged a second day of protests against plans to build another large power plant nearby.
Police cars were smashed and the plaque of Haimen's People's Congress was torn down and thrown into the street by angry protesters. The Shenzhen-Shantou highway, which links Haimen with the outside world, was blocked by thousands of riot police for the second day, preventing villagers from occupying it.
More than 100 police vehicles were parked along the highway and several hundred police involved in a crackdown on protesting residents on Tuesday night slept on the road. Just 300 metres away, roads were obscured by a haze of tear gas fired by police to disperse protesters.
A large service station close to the highway was forced to shut down after it was besieged by several hundred villagers shouting slogans and demanding that the government abandon plans to build another coal-fired power plant in the area.
'Look at how many villagers have died of cancer these past few years,' a furious mother shouted. 'Do you know how many Haimen people are lying in hospital beds?'
Residents say a power plant built by Huaneng Power in 2006 has devastated the local environment, polluting the air and drinking water in the town of 200,000, with fishermen losing their livelihoods due to pollution of surrounding waters.
A petition prepared by residents alleges that the death rate from irregular causes in Haimen is the highest in Guangdong province.