Melbourne, Sep 23 (SocialNews.XYZ) Authorities in Australia's Victoria are preparing to confront and contain demonstrators on Thursday who have been rampaging through the state capital Melbourne's central business district.
Police made more than 200 arrests on Wednesday as throngs of protesters flooded through the streets bringing traffic to a grinding halt, reports Xinhua news agency.
Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton, speaking to local media on Thursday, said riot police, armed with tear gas and rubber bullets, would continue to be out in force.
"We won't tolerate the city being held to ransom," Patton said, adding that "we would hope common sense is starting to prevail, and they are starting to reflect on their conduct and what the public sentiment is towards these people who are doing this".
The protests were initially orchestrated by construction workers opposed to new vaccine mandates placed on their industry.
Other people, including anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown demonstrators, quickly joined the fray in a defiant show of opposition to the state's handling of the pandemic.
Victorian health authorities recorded another 766 new local cases on Thursday, bringing the active cases to 6,666 which mostly clustered around Melbourne.
Source: IANS
About Gopi
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources.
When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any.
He can be reached at gopi@socialnews.xyz