The Chinese city of Chizhou was once known as a place so tranquil and beautiful that Tang dynasty poets like Li Bai retreated there to find inspiration.

But the city in southeastern Anhui province has recently been anything but quiet. A traffic dispute turned the city into the epicentre of a huge riot. Thousands of people took to the street, setting fire to cars, looting a supermarket, and even cutting power to a police station.

The riot, which took place in one of China’s poorest provinces, illustrates how a single incident can ignite massive disturbance, a worrying trend for local governments.

Large-scale protests are becoming more common in Chinese cities. Unruly mobs often vent their anger over social problems, such as unemployment and widening gap between the rich and the poor, at local authorities which they see as being corrupt. The government, worried the revolts could spin out of control, have been keen to crack down on rebels and restore order.

Chizhou, a city of 1.5m along the Yangtze River, is one of the worst performing economies in the province.

The riot there, which occurred Sunday afternoon and has since been reported in detail in the Chinese media, began when a Toyota sedan bumped into a young man surnamed Liu outside of a vegetable market.

An argument ensued and four passengers got off the sedan and assaulted Mr Liu. This drew the attention of bystanders, who grew upset over the beating. The four attackers were later taken to a police station but the mob grew outside the building and demanded police hand over the attackers.

Over a period of several hours, the mob smashed and set ablaze several cars, looted a local supermarket, threw fireworks into the police building and even cut off the building’s power, according to local reports.

A Chinese reporter who witnessed the riot said the city’s many motorcycle drivers were among those in the crowd most infuriated with the four assailants.

After roughly nine hours of unrest, police dispersed the crowd and arrested 10 “unlawful individuals” for rallying the crowd.

The events in Chizhou are only the latest in a string of riots in China over the past month, which are on occasion reported in the official media. Near Guangzhou, a traffic violation recently led to a gathering of 200 people who attacked traffic police.

Also this month in Dingzhou, just outside of Beijing, a clash between hundreds of armed thugs and farmers resulted in six casualties. The farmers, who refused to hand over their land to a power plant, alleged their attackers were hired by corrupt officials.