Hong Kong now on 'brink of total breakdown': police

Rare weekday fighting in Hong Kong carried into Tuesday night as authorities admitted that the city is on the verge of collapse.

The clashes came a day after police shot a protester at close range and a man was doused with petrol and set on fire in some of the worst violence in the Chinese-ruled city in decades.

Protesters at City University had stockpiled bricks and petrol bombs on the bridges and other approaches and were making small devices with nails.

They had overrun the campus and were smashing up the next-door Festival Walk shopping mall and setting fires.

"Our society has been pushed to the brink of a total breakdown," a police spokesman told a briefing, referring to the last two days of violence in the former British colony.