Thousands riot to protest garbage incineration plant

(BOXUN) Chunwan Township Autonomous Administrative District, Yangchun City, Guangdong Province: For two consecutive days, villagers fought with police, with many on both sides injured. .

Villagers began protesting the Hailuo Cement Plant’s building of an unlicensed incineration plant on Saturday, October 3, 2015. They blocked the road to the cement plant and many villagers were arrested.

On Friday, October 9, villagers overturned a police vehicle and the conflict continued that night as villagers set alight and burned a police vehicle. On Saturday, October 10, the demonstration again escalated as more than 1,000 villagers gathered at the Hailuo Cement Plant’s entrance gate where they burned more police vehicles, cars and cargo trucks.

Photographs and video from the site show a large number of villagers carrying red flags and clubs at the entrance of the cement plant. The police fired tear gas at the villagers, and the scene was covered with billowing smoke, cars and trucks burning and injured villagers and police scattered on the ground.

Eyewitness villager “Qiqi Qianqian” said: “My house is next door to the waste incinerator plant the Hailuo Cement Plant is building. The villagers are protesting, already two police vehicles and private government cars have been burned.”

Villagers said that at least 10 villagers were arrested and many were injured.

Eyewitness villager “Strange Uncle Corn Bun” said: “At the Chunwan Township Autonomous Administrative District, Yangchun City, Hailuo Cement Plant entrance, government troops came to violently repress the villagers. A conflict broke out, and the government troops fired tear gas at the villagers. Many police arrived and closed off the road. They wouldn’t let journalists in to conduct interviews, and the journalists didn’t dare enter. Several villagers were injured and 10 were arrested.

Another eyewitness villager said: “The government is too evil. Thousands of people protested, then burned police cars, engaged in a gang fight, and the result is a disturbance that involves the whole city.”

More pictures: see original reports in Chinese