Authorities in Shaanxi Province are investigating the sudden death of a land resources official in Zhouzhi County after she had a dispute with her boss, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Police said they won't know if the death was suicide or homicide until an autopsy is done, the Chinese Business View reported.

Wang Bing, 36, was in charge of discipline inspection at the county's land bureau. She was having a talk with the bureau director Wang Suomin in the office at the bureau about 2 PM on Friday. Before that, the bureau had a meeting on land bidding for several hours. During the talk, she reportedly disagreed with the director on a bidding project or projects.

About 30 minutes later, her colleagues told her brother that she was missing, the report said. The colleagues later discovered she was lying in a coma on the ground behind her office building. A window on the fourth floor was found open. She died despite two hours of emergency treatment.

The bureau director refused to talk to the newspaper.

(Shanghai Daily January 8, 2007)