Thai riot police on Monday (December 2) threw tear gas at protesters hoping to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

The protesters had set Sunday (December 1) as "Victory Day" to oust the government but failed to achieve their goal of seizing the prime minister's office at Government House or occupying state buildings, despite intense clashes with riot police.

Police mostly held their lines, firing repeated rounds of tear gas and using water cannons against 30,000 protesters, many of whom hurled rocks and petrol bombs. Yingluck was forced to flee a police compound to an undisclosed location.

Some protesters helped others who were injured and helped carried away.

The violence is the latest dramatic turn in a conflict pitting Bangkok's urban middle class and royalist elite against the mostly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup.

Yingluck, Thailand's firs