More than 100 villagers mobbed a power supply station accused of breaking a promise to restore their power supply, reports Information Times.

Kengwei Village was among the areas affected when a typhoon damaged the power network in Xuwen County on August 25, said Huang, director of the power supply station.

The station had just helped restore power to a neighbouring village on September 2 when it received a call at 8 pm about another outage. A seven-member team was sent to check out the problem. Seeing signs of unauthorized tampering with a switch and suspecting that people from neighbouring villages had been messing with the power grid, they readjusted the switch and then set up an ambush. Five young men showed up shortly afterwards but fled when the repairmen jumped out from their hiding places.

At 9:10 pm, more than 30 farmers from Kengwei Village stormed into the station, claiming that a villager had been injured by station staff. One of the young men fell into a ditch trying to escape and suffered a minor injury, Huang said.

The power supply station refused to pay the man compensation, angering the farmers who broke into Huang's desk, grabbed 300 yuan (US$36) in cash lying inside and did not leave until police arrived. More farmers visited the station again the next day. At the township government's mediation, Huang promised to help restore the village's power supply before the end of the day.

But the repairmen were just too busy to get around to fixing the problem, causing a revenge rampage, Huang said.

At 7 am on September 4, more than 100 villagers descended on the station, vandalized the offices and stole equipment.

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