Wuhan-Guangzhou rail work resumes

Work resumed Friday on a major railway project in south China after local residents agreed to end a five-day sit-in, an official of the contractor said.

Tong Guoqiang, an official with the state-controlled China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group, which is building that portion of the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway, said villagers agreed Thursday to suspend protests for a week after they met with local officials and the company.

The suspension cost the company "hundreds of thousands of yuan" a day, including wages and equipment costs, said Tong.

Villagers threatened to throw bricks at workers if they did not agree to stop work, according to another company official, Zhang Hong.

The residents of Nangang Village in the suburbs of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, protested because 110 households facing relocation hadn't received any information about resettlement, villagers said.

Work was suspended for a week last month for the same reason.

"They are likely to resume the protest if they do not get a reply on their resettlement in the next week," said Tong.

The line, which would run 968 km from Wuhan, capital of the central Hubei Province, to Guangzhou, is the longest under construction in China.

Work began in June 2005 and was scheduled to finish at the end of this year. The cost is 116.6 billion yuan (US$17 billion).

(2009-01-09 source:china.org.cn)