BEIJING -- Communist authorities have banned most state media from reporting on the deadly collapse of a bridge in southern China, with local officials punching and chasing reporters from the scene, reporters said Friday.
The harassment and the reporting ban, issued by the Central Propaganda Department, came Thursday while reporters swarmed the tourist town of Fenghuang to report on Monday's accident.
Communist authorities have banned most state media from reporting on the deadly collapse of the bridge, with thugs punching and chasing reporters from the scene, reporters said Friday. Rescuers have found 41 bodies but no signs of life in the days since the bridge's collapse Monday in the southern tourist town of Fenghuang.
Unidentified locals roughed up a group of five newspaper and magazine reporters as they interviewed families of those killed, according to a photographer and a reporter whose colleague was among the journalists involved.
The collapse of the bridge, which was under construction, left at least 47 people dead, making it one of the worst building accidents in China in recent years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081700752.html