Dozens of Hong Kong protesters staged a dramatic escape from a university campus sealed off by police on Monday by shimmying down plastic hosing from a bridge and fleeing on waiting motorbikes as cops fired projectiles.

Many more protesters remained trapped inside the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and two prominent figures were allowed by the police onto the campus late on Monday to mediate, a sign that there is a growing risk of bloodshed.

“The situation is getting more and more dangerous,” Jasper Tsang, a pro-Beijing politician who is the former head of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, told Reuters soon after he arrived at the campus.

As he spoke, big explosions were heard and flames flared up at a distant part of the campus.

Some of the protesters who escaped did so by lowering themselves about 10 metres from a bridge they had occupied on the campus to a flyover below. They then sped off on the back of motorcycles that were already waiting or quickly arrived. A number of them appeared subsequently to have been arrested, a Reuters witness said.

Other protesters, hurling petrol bombs, tried repeatedly to break into the campus but the police fired tear gas and water cannon to push them back.

The city’s hospital authority reported 116 injuries on Monday, including one female in serious condition.

Earlier on Monday, the police tightened their cordon around the polytechnic university, and fired rubber bullets and tear gas to pin back a few hundred anti-government protesters armed with petrol bombs and other weapons and stop them from fleeing.

Dozens, choking on the tear gas, tried to leave the campus by breaking through police lines, but were pushed back.

“If the police decide to come in by force, to make their arrests, then there will be very strong resistance from the protesters, and we’re afraid we may see bloodshed. This is something that we want to avoid,” Tsang said.

Tsang, who with legal scholar Eric Cheung was the first prominent mediator allowed by the police to enter the campus, said there were young children and elderly people trapped inside the campus and that it was a priority to get the children out first.

Witnesses estimated there were more than 300 people still on the campus.

China’s foreign ministry said on Monday no one should underestimate its will to protect its sovereignty.

SpiceJet

Several Asian airlines have cut flights to Hong Kong for the coming weeks, an industry scheduling publication showed. SpiceJet has suspended its Mumbai-Hong Kong route. Reuters