The incident in the Qinghai provincial capital of Xining began late Saturday night with an argument between neighbours over a leaky floor, Xinhua news agency said.

One of the neighbours, Li Zuchao, and a group of his friends who had been drinking then began beating up the two other neigbours.

Police were soon called in, taking those involved to a local police station.

But about three dozen of Li's friends and relatives gathered at the station in the early hours of Sunday, attacking it twice.

"In the fracas, a notice board, camera and other station facilities were damaged or destroyed," the report said.

Two police officers were sent to hospital, one with ear injuries and the other with head wounds. The report did not say whether the injuries were serious.

Violent outbursts by people upset over perceived police heavy-handedness or government injustices are common in China.

The incident, reported by Xinhua news agency, comes amid a heavy security crackdown in Tibet and adjacent Tibetan areas like Qinghai to prevent unrest during this month's 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

State media last week reported an incident on Tuesday in which three traffic police officers in Xining were surrounded and beaten by a group of men as they intervened to sort out a routine traffic accident.

The report, issued Thursday by China National Radio, said two of the officers were taken to hospital in stable condition, and that one of the assailants was arrested while other were being sought.

The Xining incident was the second reported attack on a Qinghai police station in a little over a week.

On March 21, an angry mob attacked a police station in Rabgya, a mountain town about 300 kilometres (186 miles) south of Xining that is known in Chinese as Lajia and home to a large Tibetan monastery, Xinhua reported at the time.

It said 93 Tibetan Buddhist monks, most from the Rabgya monastery, were taken into custody by police following the incident.

Last year, widespread anti-China demonstrations and riots erupted in Tibet and other nearby provinces with large Tibetan populations including Qinghai on the 1959 uprising's 49th anniversary, prompting this year's heavy security crackdown.

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Beijing (AFP) March 27, 2009
More than 1,000 policemen have deployed to a rural area of southern China where days of clashes between two feuding villages left one dead and nine others injured, state media reported.