Thousands of people demonstrating over fears of pollution from a sewage pipeline at a paper factory in east China clashed with police yesterday, the latest in a series of environmental protests.

The protesters overturned two cars and ransacked local government offices in the coastal city of Qidong, near Shanghai, an AFP photographer said.

Demonstrators seized bottles of liqueur and wine from the offices along with cartons of cigarettes, items which Chinese officials frequently receive as bribes, according to messages on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service.

Thousands of people had gathered in a square in front of the government offices and in adjacent streets yesterday morning, with armed police arriving at the scene at 9 a.m., AFP witnessed.

But the crowds dispersed after local authorities used television, radio, the internet and text message to announce that the waste water pipeline project at the mill, which belongs to Japanese company Oji Paper, would be “permanently cancelled”.

Oji Paper denied it was causing pollution and said closing the 110-kilometre pipeline would not affect operations at the plant, located in Nantong, Jiji Press reported.

“We don’t release ‘polluted water’ as we are currently releasing water after purification that meets the local environmental standards,” the news agency quoted a company public relations official as saying.

Protests against environmental degradation have increased in China, where three decades of rapid and unfettered industrial expansion have taken their toll.