Unrest simmered for a third day Wednesday in a feud between two villages in southern China that has already sparked riots in which a police station was set ablaze, state media said.
Residents from a village in the tropical island province of Hainan were seen blocking roads and setting a truck on fire Wednesday, after two days of protests that left seven people injured, the official Xinhua news agency said.
More than 100 officials have been sent to the area to restore order, it said.
The violence began when a student from Gancheng village was set upon, possibly by school children from neighbouring Baoshang village, according to the local Hainan Daily newspaper.
The two villages have reportedly been feuding over land for nearly 80 years.
Xinhua said the injured student's relatives and friends descended on local government offices to protest what they said was official failure to maintain public security.
By Monday evening, the crowd had swelled to several hundred, some of whom set fire to government and police buildings, and destroyed three cars and ten motorcycles, the reports said.
The crowd dispersed that night, but five Gancheng villagers went to Baoshang on Tuesday and set fire to a hotel and homes. In retaliation Baoshang villagers attacked and seriously injured a Gancheng resident, Xinhua said.
The government of Dongfang city, which oversees the villages, refused to comment, and local police were not immediately available.
Four children in Gancheng have been attacked this year by people they believed were from Baoshang, Xinhua said.
China sees tens of thousands of protests or outbursts of violence every year, often stemming from land disputes or dissatisfaction with local authorities.
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