Oil field protester crushed to death by truck
Print Edition
A woman was crushed to death by a truck on Tuesday while protesting outside the country’s largest natural-gas processing base in northwest China’s Gansu Province.
About 8am on the morning of the incident, the victim, Wang Caixia, joined with 40 other people from the village of Chendongyuan to block access to the Changqing oil field, which is run by state-owned PetroChina. They were complaining that in the six years since the facility opened, the main road through the village had been ruined due to a constant flow of heavy vehicles, The Beijing News reported yesterday.
By 12:30pm, however, Wang was one of just three protesters remaining. Her comrades were Xu Fenping and Jing Qiaohong.
Xu said while the three villagers had argued with some of the truck drivers, there had been no physical altercations or threats from either side. But in a single moment the situation changed dramatically.
“We were about 10 meters away from them when a young driver suddenly aimed his truck straight at us,” she said.
Xu and Jing leapt out of the way, but Wang was too slow and was knocked down. The truck ran straight over her, crushing her skull, the report said.
The emergency services were called, but Wang was declared dead at the scene.
The unnamed driver was taken into custody and police are now investigating the incident, the report said.
Liu Xuemin, publicity director of the oil field, said the company has launched its own probe into the incident. It is keen to determine if the driver was related to the plant, he said.
Local labor leader Wang Guizhong said the processing base opened in 2008 and since then there has been a steady flow of heavily laden trucks on the road, causing it serious damage. Despite local people’s protests, PetroChina has done little to rectify the situation.
In 2009, the government ordered the company to repave the road, but it failed to do so, Liu said.
Xu Wanfeng, Party chief of Huaicheng Town, which administers the village, said the road is about 23 kilometers long, and while some of it has been repaired, most of it has been left untouched.
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