BEIJING ? Chinese authorities have detained five people in a southern seaside town where protests against a planned power plant expansion resulted in clashes with police, state media and an official said, as riot police fired tear gas.
Thousands of people in the town of Haimen wanting to block a highway were locked in a standoff with riot police Thursday, said protesters contacted by The Associated Press. It was the third day of unrest in the area.
A city Communist Party propaganda official surnamed Chen said some people who had participated in "illegal activities that endanger public security" earlier this week had been detained, but said he was uncertain how many.
Five people were detained by police for suspected vandalism by Wednesday evening, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Xinhua said hundreds had gathered at the toll gate of the highway.
A resident also surnamed Chen, who is not related to the official, said a few thousand people gathered to face a roadblock set up by police. "Police set up a roadblock at the highway and threatened to arrest anyone who dared to cross," Chen said.
The protesters think an existing coal-fired power plant has contributed to what they say is a rise in cancer cases and heavy pollution in the seas, a serious problem for a town where fishing is a source of livelihood.
"We just want to ask the central government to order the construction of the coal power plant to be stopped," said Lin Fujin, a Haimen resident who was at the scene. "The pollution has turned the sky black and the fish are dead."
Officials cited by Xinhua said the construction of the new plant, which would be an expansion of the existing one, has not started yet. They said the project must pass an environmental impact assessment and be approved by Haimen's residents.
Footage from Hong Kong's Cable TV showed tear gas canisters hitting the ground in front of a gas station as panicked residents fled in various directions. That is the second time police have used tear gas to disperse protesters in Haimen this week.
The broadcaster also showed riot police with helmets and shields lined up around a large water cannon truck facing dozens of people on the other side of a road.
"The police hit me," a woman with bloodied hands told Cable TV, surrounded by an angry crowd. "I just wanted to go over there to offer an explanation but they started to drag me on the road."
In response to the protests, the local government said Tuesday it would temporarily suspend the power plant project, Xinhua said.
But protesters say they have not heard directly from authorities on the matter. They were also angered by rumors that one or two young protesters had died in clashes with police, but Xinhua cited a local Communist Party official as saying that no deaths had occurred.
After three decades of laxly regulated industrialization, China is seeing a surge in protests over such environmental worries.
In September, hundreds of villagers in an eastern Chinese city near Shanghai demonstrated against pollution they blamed on a solar panel factory. In August, 12,000 residents in the northeastern port city of Dalian protested against a chemical plant after waves from a tropical storm broke a dike guarding the plant and raised fears that flood waters could release toxic chemicals.
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