Guangdong province's procuratorial agencies investigated 440 Party and government officials in 381 cases of alleged endangerment of the ecological environment in the first eight months this year.

Zhang Jian, deputy director of the anti-corruption bureau under Guangdong Provincial High People's Procuratorate, said the figure was more than three times the total in the previous three years.

"Eighty percent of the such cases are still under investigation," Zhang said at a news conference in the Guangdong provincial capital of Guangzhou on Tuesday.

The Party and government officials who were investigated from January to August included a prefecture-level official and 32 at the county level, Zhang said.

Lu Yingming, then the director-general of the Guangdong Land and Natural Resources Department, was removed from his post and detained in April after he was investigated for illegally approving sand excavation in the Pearl River, destroying and damaging the ecology and environment along riverbanks and in the riverbeds.

Lu was investigated on suspicion of accepting bribes of more than 20 million yuan ($3.27 million) from local river-sand traders.

"Lu will soon be transferred to the judicial department for prosecution," Zhang said.

Lu was deputy director-general of the Guangdong Water Conservancy Department and was in charge of river-sand excavation before he took office in the Land and Natural Resources Department in March.

Other officials who were investigated for destroying and damaging ecology and the environment came from the industries of sewage treatment, forestry, gardening, garbage disposal, housing construction, land and natural resources.