Kazakhstan declared emergencies in the capital, main city and provinces on Wednesday after demonstrators stormed and torched public buildings, the worst unrest for more than a decade in the tightly controlled country.

The cabinet resigned, but that failed to quell the anger of the demonstrators, who have taken to the streets in response to a fuel price increase from the start of the new year.

Though the unrest was triggered by the price rise, there were signs of broader political demands in a country still under the shadow of three decades of one-man rule.

Nursultan Nazarbayev, 81, took office as President of the former Soviet republic in 1990 and only stepped down in 2019. He retained authority as ruling party boss and head of a powerful security council.

An Instagram live stream by a Kazakh blogger showed a fire blazing in the office of the mayor of the main city, Almaty, with apparent gunshots audible nearby. Videos posted online also showed the nearby prosecutor’s office burning.

Earlier on Wednesday, Reuters journalists saw thousands of protesters pressing towards Almaty city centre, some of them on a large truck. Security forces, ranked in helmets and riot shields, fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades.

The city’s police chief said Almaty was under attack by “extremists and radicals”, who had beaten up 500 civilians and ransacked hundreds of businesses.

A presidential decree announced a two-week state of emergency and night-time curfew in the capital Nur-Sultan — named after the former President. It cited a “serious and direct security threat to citizens”. States of emergency were also declared in Almaty and in the westerly Mangistau province, where protests first broke out.

Reuters journalists reported the Internet had been shut down as the unrest spread. Netblocks, a site that monitors global Internet connectivity, said Kazakhstan was “in the midst of a nation-scale internet blackout”.

Footage showed police and security officials in civilian clothes breaking up a small group of protesters in the city of Shymkent, hauling away men and pushing them into a police car and a white van as some chanted “Nazarbayev, go away!”

In the city of Aqtobe, what appeared to be several hundred protesters gathered on a square shouting: “Old Man, go away!”.

Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, accepted the cabinet’s resignation on Wednesday and ordered acting ministers to reverse the fuel price rise. Tokayev also named a new first deputy head of the National Security Committee to replace a nephew of Nazarbayev.