BEIJING, CHINA - A WEEK after rioting erupted in southwest China over a disputed death, another controversial death in the country's northwest sparked a clash between villagers and police, local newspapers reported.

The earlier riot in Guizhou province brought 30,000 locals onto the streets after a local teenage girl's death sparked claims of a police cover-up of her rape and murder.

The more recent clash on Saturday in Fugu County, Shaanxi province, was smaller and less destructive - but nonetheless another reminder of the widespread distrust of authorities in parts of the countryside.

China, with its vast and poor rural populations, sees many thousands of protests and what officials call 'mass incidents' every year.

The Shaanxi-based Sanqin Metropolitan Daily reported that on July 3 the driver of a farm vehicle jumped into the Yellow River to escape police checking him for traffic violations.

Police fished his body out of the river two days later, and were then pursued by angry kin of the dead man, who demanded to know why they were not told of the find and also demanded to have control of the corpse.

'The two sides struggled over the corpse...and neither side would back down, and this immediately attracted many spectators,' said the report, which was reproduced on many Chinese news Web sites on Monday.

In the earlier incident, residents in Weng'an, Guizhou, torched police and government headquarters and vehicles, demanding justice after claims spread that police had covered up as a suicide the rape and murder of a teenage girl.

Police denied that relatives of officials had anything to do with the girl's death and said she drowned herself.

Province authorities, however, subsequently sacked Weng'an Communist Party chief, county mayor and two top law-and-order officials. They said corruption and abuses of police power were widespread there. -- REUTERS