Authorities tore down a stubborn couple's house after a three-year standoff in southwestern China that hindered a construction project and captivated the nation, a witness and state media said Tuesday.

Wu Ping and Yang Wu had been fighting off bulldozers in downtown Chongqing since 2004, when they were one of 280 households asked to make way for a redevelopment project in the booming southwestern city of nearly 28 million.

Their two-story brick building, which had been perched precariously on a tower of land in the middle of a huge construction pit, was clawed into dust by an earth mover as a few dozen reporters and people looked on late Monday night, said witness Zhou Shuguang. Zhou photographed the event and posted the pictures on his blog.

The demolition took about three hours, he said.

The couple's passive resistance has been portrayed by state media as heroic, and chat rooms have been flooded with passionate declarations of support for the defiant pair.

"This is not an individual case, it concerns the rights of all those Chinese who say their homes were demolished. You are the people's heroes!" declared one anonymous posting on the Yangcheng Evening News' Web site.

The house was referred to by state media and Web commentators as a "nail house" because it stuck up like a nail that couldn't be pulled out.

"Dingzihu," or "nail house," also plays on a common, usually derogatory, Chinese phrase for troublemakers who refuse to go along with government policies.

In recent weeks, the wife, Wu, tirelessly met with domestic and foreign media to publicize their fight for better compensation. Wu said earlier she had been offered US$258,000 or two higher floors in the planned complex -- both of which she turned down because she wanted lower levels in the new building so she could run her restaurant.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Yang had been holed up in the house, surviving on deliveries of food and water, before leaving it Monday afternoon.

The couple agreed to move into a similar-sized apartment elsewhere in Chongqing, Xinhua said. They could not be immediately reached to confirm the deal.

Telephones at the local district government housing management bureau and the Chongqing municipal government rang unanswered Tuesday.

Property disputes and illegal land grabs have accelerated in recent years as China's economy expands at double-digit rates and farmland is gobbled up for industrial parks and skyscrapers.

Government officials often have sided with developers, touching off riots and protests.