Dispute with neighbor triggers suicidal blast

ZONGYANG, Anhui -- A suicidal blast that killed two people and injured another three in East China's Anhui province Friday had started with a neighborhood dispute, the local government said.

Wu Yousheng, a native of Jindu Village in Zongyang County, broke into the village committee's meeting room at around 10 a.m. and detonated some explosives that were tied on himself, the county government said in a press release late Friday.

Wu himself and the chief of the village committee died in the blast, it said.

An accountant and two other village committee officials were landed in hospital with injuries.

Local police said after investigation that Wu had triggered the blast in revenge, as he resented the village committee officials over an "unfair compensation scheme" for him after his fight with a neighbor in January.

Wu believed the officials' mediation was in favor of the neighbor, who had a history of mental illness, police quoted family members and fellow villagers as saying.

The blast destroyed the village committee's meeting room door and windows.

"I heard a deafening bang," said an old woman surnamed Chen, who was sitting in a store just across the narrow street when the explosion went off. "It was like an earthquake, and I almost fell off the chair."

Further investigation into the case is going on.