Thousands of people carrying machetes and axes have taken to the streets of a Chinese city in revenge at 156 deaths during ethnic unrest.

On Sunday a rally in Urumqi, the Muslim capital of the Xinjiang region - one of the most politically sensitive in China - left scores dead and more than 1,000 people injured. Around 1,400 were arrested.

The Chinese government has blamed exiled separatists for the unrest which followed a protest about how the government handled a clash in June between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in southern China, where two Uighurs died.

On Tuesday, thousands of angry Han Chinese, sought vengeance for the recent deaths, and surged through Urumqi looking for Uighur targets.

"They attacked us. Now it's our turn to attack them," one man said as other protesters held up their fists in a show of defiance and chanted slogans including "Exterminate the Uighurs" and "Unity is Strength".

Crowds stopped to smash Uighur restaurants, throw rocks at a mosque - ignoring pleas from moderates among the protesters - and threaten nervous-looking residents.

"It's your time to suffer," they shouted at some of the five- and six-storey apartment blocks lining Xinfu Road, which protesters said saw some of the worst destruction in Sunday's riots.

At one point Han protesters chased a teenage boy who looked Uighur up a tree and began throwing sticks at him, while others begged for calm and eventually got him to safety.

Abdul Ali, a Uighur man in his 20s who had taken off his shirt, held up his clenched fist. "They've been arresting us for no reason and it's time for us to fight back," he said

Ali said three of his brothers as well as a sister had been among the suspects taken into police custody for questioning. Local residents complained police were making indiscriminate sweeps of Uighur areas.

Xinjiang's Communist Party boss Wang Lequan the unrest had been quelled, although he warned "this struggle is far from over". The state-run media quoted him as calling for officials to launch "a struggle against separatism".

Human Rights Watch's Asia advocacy director, Sophie Richardson, called for an independent probe into the unrest.

"Whoever started the violence, lowering ethnic tensions in the region requires the government to constructively address Uighur's grievances, not exacerbate them," she said.

Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China and in both places the government has sought to maintain its grip by controlling religious and cultural life while promising economic growth and prosperity.

But minorities have long complained that Han Chinese reap most of the benefits from official investment and subsidies, making locals feel like outsiders.

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