Last Updated: Hundredsof masked youths tore through the centre of the English city of
Manchester on Tuesday, one day after what police have called the worst
riots in living memory in London.
Violence erupted in
Manchester city centre for the first time in the four days of rioting
that have hit Britain, with large groups of youths locked in running
battles with hundreds of riot police in the city centre.
The youths smashed shop windows and went looting, setting fire to shops and hurling missiles at police.
There
were also serious outbreaks of violence in Birmingham and other parts
of central England, but London - which had borne the brunt of previous
violence - was largely quiet after thousands of extra police were
ordered onto the streets.
Police say Canning Circus
police station in Nottingham was firebombed late on Tuesday by a group
of up to 40 men. No injuries came from the attack, police say.
In Manchester, police were driven back by gangs of hundreds of youths who covered their faces with scarves and ski masks.
Gangs smashed into shoe shops, electronics stores and clothes shops and set fire to a girls' clothing store in the city centre.
Two
raiders smashed the glass entrance of the Arndale shopping centre, the
city's main central shopping mall, opening the way for around 100
youths to pour into a shop before rushing out carrying clothing and
shoes.
Gangs taunted the police, hurling stones and missiles at shop windows and jeering at riot police, who chased them in vans.
London cleanup
Londoners
got down to the task of cleaning up their city as police flooded the
streets of the capital the day after what Scotland Yard has called the
worst riots in living memory.
More than 450 people have
been arrested after mobs smashed cars, looted shops and set fire to
buildings in the capital on Monday, and copycat criminals took to the
streets in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham in smaller
scale unrest on Tuesday.
London mayor Boris Johnson
hailed the "spirit of London" as he joined the clean-up, while prime
minister David Cameron vowed that authorities would do "everything to
restore order to the streets."
More than 16,000 police
officers were put onto the streets of London on Tuesday in an
apparently successful attempt to avoid any repeat of Monday's mayhem.
Restoring order
British
Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his Italian holiday to hold
emergency meetings with Metropolitan Police and says parliament will be
recalled on Thursday to discuss the worst riots in Britain in two
decades.
"People should be in no doubt that we will do
everything to restore order to Britain's streets," he said at a press
conference outside Downing Street.
"Let me completely
condemn these sickening scenes; scenes of looting, scenes of vandalism,
scenes of thieving, scenes of people attacking police, of people even
attacking firefighters.
"This is criminality pure and simple and it has to be confronted.
"The
Metropolitan Police commissioner has said that compared to 6,000
police officers on the street last night, there will be 16,000 on the
street tonight."
Mr Cameron gave a stern warning to the looters.
"You
will feel the full force of the law and if you are old enough to
commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishments," he
said.
The Prime Minister has called another emergency government meeting tomorrow to discuss the crisis.
Olympics concerns
Organisers
of next year's Olympic Games have reassured Chef de Missions meeting
in London the current riots will not impact games preparations.
Chef de Missions are in central London to finalise details for the event next year.
Papua New Guinea's Chef de Mission, Syd Yates, has told Pacific Beat preparations have not been affected so far.
"They
said that we're more than prepared for security events that may
happen, [that] we are very, very prepared, we've invested a lot of
money in security and rest assured that we treat it very very seriously
and that security is a prime concern of the London Olympic Organising
Committee," he said.
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