LONDON - Police battled to restore order on Sunday as rioting broke out in northern London after a local man was shot dead by police.

Twenty-six police officers were injured on Saturday night, and 42 people were arrested for offenses including torching vehicles and buildings amid widespread looting.

"The rioting in Tottenham last night was utterly unacceptable," a Downing Street spokesman said in a statement.

"There is no justification for the aggression the police and the public faced, or for the damage to property. There is now a police investigation into the rioting, and we should let that process happen," he said.

Although order was restored on Sunday morning, police sealed off the streets where the riots occurred. A crowd gathered behind the police cordon, where dozens of officers lined up to prevent them from crossing.

"It was like a total war zone (last night)," Nick, 40, told China Daily.

Nick, a local resident, would not provide his last name.

"Groups of young people, hooded, were throwing bricks and pretty much anything they could get in hand at police officers ... they also attacked camera crews and other journalists."

The district suffered substantial damage in the riots. Heavy gray smoke was still rising on Sunday over a few burnt buildings on Tottenham High Road, as firefighters worked hard to put out the blaze.

Tottenham has a large number of ethnic minorities and includes areas with the highest unemployment rates in London. It also has a history of racial tension with local young people, especially blacks, resenting police behavior including the use of stop and search powers.

Some residents who left their homes on Saturday night came back on Sunday to see the damage.

Several shops were looted and burned. A local ALDI supermarket may have been the most heavily burned. Bricks and broken glass littered the roads and sidewalks.

The riot followed a protest over the death of 29-year-old Mark Duggan, a father of four who was killed on Thursday during an exchange of gunfire with police.

About 300 people gathered outside the police station on High Road to demand "justice" on Saturday evening.

After dark, two police patrol cars, a police van and a double-decker bus were set on fire. Rioters kicked in windows as shops were looted, with people pushing away shopping trolleys full of stolen goods.

Tottenham's MP David Lammy appealed for calm on Sunday. "The scenes currently taking place in our community are not representative of the vast majority of people in Tottenham. Those who remember the destructive conflicts of the past will be determined not to go back to them," he said in a statement.

Metropolitan police Commander Stephen Watson said: "These are very distressing scenes for Londoners in general and the local community in particular."

Analysts noted that their frustration shown during the rioting could also be tied to the UK's sluggish economy.

In recent months, student and trade union protests in Central London have turned violent, but this outbreak of rioting is the worst in years in the suburbs.

Saturday's disturbance sparked grim memories of a deadly riot in 1985, when a policeman was murdered and another shot in Broadwater Farm, an area in Tottenham, after a woman died during a police raid.

China Daily