Armed riot police, armoured personnel carriers and guard dogs patrolled the capital of China’s only Muslim majority region yesterday after scores died in the bloodiest clashes in the country since the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

Officials said 156 had been killed, and 828 people injured in a riot that erupted on Sunday evening in the heart of the city of Urumqi in the west of China. They said the number of fatalities was almost certain to rise.

The dead included at least one member of the paramilitary People’s Armed Police, a force traditionally used to suppress domestic unrest. A curfew has been imposed.

Blood stained the roads, burnt-out cars and buses littered the city and few people dared to venture on to the streets after thousands of members of the Uighur ethnic group rampaged through the city attacking Han Chinese late on Sunday.

Residents had been angered by the Government’s handling of a clash last month between Han and Uighur factory workers in southern China in which two Uighurs died. Locals had gathered after the hugely popular Sunday market in Urumqi to demand redress for the dead men, killed after what proved to be a rumour that two Han girls had been raped by Uighurs at the factory.

The crowd refused to disperse and turned their rage on Han residents, who now make up the majority of the population in Urumqi.

Despite this, officials played down suggestions that the violence was sparked by ethnic tensions. The Government took mere hours to pin the blame on the exiled activist Rebiya Kadeer, whose US-based World Uighur Congress seeks independence for the Xinjiang region. She denied the allegation. The World Uighur Congress, which she heads, said: “It is common practice of the Chinese Government to accuse me for unrest in East Turkestan.”

It was not clear how many of the dead and injured were Uighurs killed by security forces and how many were ethnic Han, but the death toll makes it the single deadliest day of violence in China since the army crackdown on student demonstrators in Beijing 20 years ago.

The rioters overturned roadside barriers, seized police cars, smashed the windscreens and then overturned and set fire to them. They burnt shops and offices and two apartment blocks.

State television showed several people near a bus station kicking a woman as she cowered on the ground. One man slumped against a railing, one side of his face swollen from beatings. Another lay dead, his throat cut. Most appeared to be Han.

One resident told The Times: “Two Han and two Kazakhs took refuge near the bazaar. They saw a girl with one hand chopped off and her face slashed so that the flesh was almost cut off.” He said many of the victims were trapped on buses by knife-wielding Uighurs. “They chopped at people like crazy. They didn’t seem to care if you were Han or not.”

He added that at first security forces held their fire but after a while he began to hear the sound of shooting. “I don’t know if they were shooting into the crowd or into the sky to warn them.”

One young Han shopkeeper said. “They used hammers to break the windows. I was so afraid that I hid under the bed with my sister-in-law. When they had taken everything they set fire to the store. We hid, covered by our quilt for three hours. Finally even the quilt caught fire.” However, both escaped with their lives. Uighurs said the bloodletting should come as no surprise. One man said: “The Chinese always treat us as so low. They don’t even want to look us in the eye. This has been going on for centuries.”

Han and Uighur residents of Xinjiang make little effort to hide their mutual antipathy. Uighurs resent the huge immigration of Han over the past few decades, many moving westwards to work in oil and gasfields and to run the Government. They say the incomers are taking jobs that should go to Uighurs. Han describe the Uighurs as lazy and ungrateful for the modernisation and greater prosperity brought to their region under Beijing rule. China incorporated Xinjiang in the 19th century and re-established its control after the communists swept to power in 1949.

State media and officials gave no breakdown of the death toll, saying only that 57 of the dead were found murdered down narrow alleys. It was not known whether the victims were killed by rioters or by security forces as they used teargas and firearms to end several hours of street battles.

Yesterday up to 2,000 helmeted riot police wielding shields and batons patrolled the streets. Paramilitary police armed with semi-automatic guns stood watch at main intersections. The mobile phone service was blocked, and internet links were also cut or slowed down. The police chief Liu Yaohua said several hundred people had been arrested, including nine who had played a leading role in fanning the violence. Police were searching for about 90 other “key suspects”.

Times Recommends

• 'Lost' cargo ship Arctic Sea gives up its secrets
• Army wants to retreat in Afghanistan
• Jungle angel was Obama’s mother