Villagers in southeastern China attacked police and took local officials hostage in protests over a wastewater treatment plant they accuse of pollution, residents and state media said Tuesday.
Police had to intervene in a bid to rescue two officials taken captive in the unrest in the city of Quanzhou in coastal Fujian province, residents told AFP.
They said anger over a foul smell emitted by the plant and suspicions that it was polluting the local environment had been building for years.
They boiled over in a series of confrontations and clashes over the past two weeks that saw villagers attack and damage plant equipment, residents said, in the latest in a wave of social unrest over pollution.
"After an official struck a woman, villagers seized two officials as hostages and several thousand people gathered in recent days," a worker at a local shipyard told AFP by phone.
The man, who declined to give his name, said close to 2,000 police then moved in to rescue the officials. It was not clear how many days the officials were held.
Other witnesses reached by phone corroborated that account.
Calls to various government offices in Quanzhou either went unanswered or officials declined to comment.
However, a report by the state-run Straits Metropolitan News, based in the Fujian capital of Fuzhou, also described the hostage-taking and clashes, but said only about 200 protesters were involved.
"A small number of people took advantage of the situation to cause trouble, damaging and smashing equipment," it said, citing information from the city government.
It said "unlawful elements" beat two police officers, seriously injuring one of them.
Residents said people living near the plant have long suffered health problems.
"Our water is polluted. It is because of the plant. The government does not want this known," said a female employee at a local restaurant, who gave only her surname, Wang.
Two similar incidents came to light earlier in August — in northern Shaanxi and in central Hunan province — which saw a total of more than 2,100 children test positive for high lead levels.
Angry villagers blamed the poisonings on a pair of smelting plants in the two areas.
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