More than 500 home owners in south China's Guangdong Province confronted police on Thursday evening, demanding the authorities stop building a transformer substation near their residential area.

They confronted more than 150 policemen at the west gate of Junjing Garden Residential Quarter around 9 p.m., according to a resident surnamed Wang.

A Xinhua reporter saw home owners banging drums at around 10 p.m. and shouting to the police outside the gate, asking them to leave and release home owners who had been detained for protesting the building of the transformer substation.

China Southern Power Grid and Guangzhou Municipal Power Supply Bureau, who were in charge of the construction, had not explained to the home owners, Wang said.

There was no scuffle between the two sides.

(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2009)