(April 28, 2010) BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese police have seized a farmer who doused himself in gasoline and threatened to blow himself up to stop the demolition of his house, in the latest showdown over a controversial hydropower project.

Luo Qihui, 36, was detained after a 20-hour standoff with police in Dashu town in southwestern Sichuan province, his brother Luo Qidian, who lived in the same now-flattened courtyard compound, told Reuters.

The Luo brothers are losing their home and fields to the Pubugou Hydropower Station in Hanyuan, the largest in a string of two dozen dams punctuating the Dadu river.

Six years ago tens of thousands of people spilled into the streets to protest its construction, halting work, triggering deployment of a huge paramilitary police force and forcing the ouster of at least one Communist party official.

Huang Yan, Liu Zhen and Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters, April 28, 2010

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Further Reading:

• Violence erupts at Chinese dam: Exclusive Report from Probe International