Police arrested 874 people while 90 police officers were injured during student protests in Chile, the authorities said Friday.
"They did not just try to paralyze the centre of Santiago, but late at night they plundered and arsoned too," said Deputy Interior Minister Rodrigo Ubilla.
More than 1,000 police officers were deployed in Santiago to counter Thursday's student protest. Many of the people arrested were minors, DPA reported.
In Chile, most school education and the whole of the university system requires the payment of monthly fees.
Students have been demonstrating to demand free, good-quality public education for two months, and hundreds of thousands of people have poured onto the streets to protest.
The rallies have drawn the biggest crowds for protests in Chile since the end of the military dictatorship in 1990.
The student protest has had a significant impact on the popularity rating of Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, which sank to 26 per cent according to an opinion poll published Thursday, the lowest support rating for any Chilean president since 1990.
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