Opponents of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev took control of Kyrgyzstan after a day of deadly violence that ended with the leader fleeing the capital of the strategic Central Asian state.

Opposition protesters seized the presidential administration late Wednesday and announced on state radio that they had formed a provisional government with former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva at its head.

A worker at Bishkek's international airport told AFP that the 60-year-old Bakiyev had fled the capital aboard a small plane as his opponents consolidated their grip on key national institutions.

A defence ministry official told AFP Bakiyev had left for Kyrgyzstan's southern city of Osh at the urging of the key ministeries and his own security detail. The authorities in Osh confirmed the information.

Opposition leader Temir Sariyev told Kyrgyz radio that Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov had signed a letter of resignation.

Otunbayeva vowed the new leadership in the country would move quickly to normalize the situation.

"Power is now in the hands of the people's government," Otunbayeva said on state radio.

"Responsible people have been appointed and are already working to normalize the situation."

Scores of people are reported to have been killed in a day of ferocious clashes in Bishkek and other cities that quickly turned into a nationwide revolt against Bakiyev.

As unrest swept the country, the opposition took control of national television, the prosecutors' office was set alight and there were reports that the country's interior minister has been killed.

The riots were the culmination of spiralling protests in the Central Asian nation with the opposition demanding Bakiyev's resignation, accusing his government of rights violations, authoritarianism and economic mismanagement.

Although the authorities briefly arrested three leading opposition figures and declared a state of emergency, the rebels rapidly took control of some of the main levers of power.

A health ministry official said 47 people had died, many from gunshot wounds, with more than 400 injured. Officials said that the toll could be expected to rise.

Opposition leader Omurbek Tekebayev said that more than 100 people had been killed in the violence.

Opposition-appointed health minister Damira Niyazaliyeva told AFP 41 people had been killed, with 404 injured, of whom 306 were hospitalized.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the United States was monitoring the situation "very closely".

A US official in Washington, who requested anonymity, said the Kyrgyz authorities had closed the airport north of the capital that is used a transit point for US troops in Afghanistan.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a statement: "This is Kyrgyzstan's internal affair, but the form the protest took showed ordinary people's extreme outrage at the existing regime."

His spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova told the RIA Novosti news agency: "The president thinks that the most important thing is to avoid more casualties and restore the rule of law in the state."

Prior to seizing the presidential offices, opposition protesters laid siege to both the national parliament and the offices of the government, demanding that Bakiyev quit.

An AFP journalist saw flames coming from the ground floor of the four-storey prosecutors' office.

Riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades, and Prime Minister Usenov declared a state of emergency, but all to little effect.

A police source and a witness said Interior Minister Moldomus Kongantiyev had been killed in the northwest hub of Talas where the first protests erupted, a report denied by the interior ministry.

Kongantiyev was attacked by protestors who had also taken deputy prime minister Akylbek Zhaparov captive, the Kabar Kyrgyz state news agency reported.

In Bishkek, stun grenade blasts reverberated across the city and the crackle of automatic weapons fire filled the air as protesters in the main square gasped for breath in a fog of tear gas.

Witnesses said security forces had fired live bullets into the air as between 3,000 and 5,000 protestors overturned cars and set them on fire in Bishkek.

Protestors appeared to have seized several heavily armoured police vehicles and were standing on them waving red Kyrgyz flags and the blue flag of the opposition movement.

Looters also ransacked the home of Bakiyev's family, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

The violence came a day after more than 1,000 opposition protesters burst through police lines and took control of government offices in Talas.

In the central city of Naryn, hundreds of protesters on Wednesday stormed the regional government headquarters after the local governor refused to negotiate.

Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous country perched at the strategic junction between China, Russia and southwest Asia, is among the poorest countries to have emerged from the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

It has been plagued by corruption and chronic instability and the troubles resemble widespread unrest that washed over the country in March 2005 and resulted in the overthrow of president Askar Akayev.

- AFP