Chinese man's faked death thwarted by heat

Odds and Sods

A soft drink vendor's scheme to fake his own death for financial gain was revealed after the heat in central China's Hubei Province proved too much for him to bear on Saturday. The incident occurred at around 4pm, when more than 10 men were holding the sheet-covered vendor's "corpse" on a gurney near the Jianghan Road subway station in the provincial capital Wuhan.They claimed that urban management workers had beaten the man to death and demanded tens of thousands of yuan in compensation.

More than 300 people gathered at the scene, and later, over 80 police officers were dispatched to maintain order there. The crowd dispersed two hours later, when the "dead" vendor suddenly jumped up, grabbed a bottle of water and drank it before saying, "It's too hot. I can't bear it anymore."

The soft drink vendor surnamed Han and two others have been detained for disturbing public order. After being detained, Han told police that urban management workers with the city's Jianghan District clashed with the vendors after telling them that their stands were blocking traffic earlier in the day, asking them to leave and confiscating their mineral waters and other beverages.

The No. 2 Hospital of Wuhan City confirmed that some vendors and urban management workers sustained minor injuries in the altercation, but no one was killed. China's urban management workers, or chengguan, are often criticized for their violent approach to tackling low-level, urban and non-criminal regulation violations. Reports about urban management law enforcement units often appear in the media due to accusations of chengguan officers beating vendors and smashing their stalls.