Clashes broke out between police and protesters in the Nile Delta textile town of Mahalla el-Kubra for the second straight day on Monday and the protesters set fire to several shops, witnesses said.

Thousands of youngsters threw stones at riot police and the riot police fired tear gas to disperse them, they added.

"They (the protesters) are roaming from street to street in enormous numbers and fighting with the security forces," said one witness, who asked not to be named.

"They are chanting: 'Enough, it's too much,'" he added.

Clashes started on Sunday when the day shift ended at a giant textile mill where the workers had planned to go on strike for higher wages and protest against high prices.

Plainclothes security men inside the factory kept the workers apart from each other and made sure they worked.

More than 60 people remained in hospital on Monday with injuries from the clashes and hundreds of others had breathing problems from tear gas. Two schools, two ATM machines, five cars and 11 shops were burned or damaged, police sources said.

Four people lost eyes on Sunday when the police hit them with rubber bullets, a medical source said.

On Monday the trigger for unrest appears to have been the arrival of Egypt's prosecutor general, Abdel Magid Mahmoud, on a tour of inspection of the damage in Mahalla. Protesters threw stones at his motorcade, the witness said.

Opposition groups had hoped the strike at the Mahalla factory would be the centrepiece of a day of protest against the government and against inflation, especially in food prices.

But police prevented sympathy demonstrations in Cairo and a call for a national strike was not widely heeded.

Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid criticised the strikers, saying the country needed to work harder to overcome the crisis over food prices.

"There are people who want to exploit this matter (prices) for political reasons and ambitions and in a cheap and stupid way," the minister said in an interview with state television.

The public prosecutor told a news conference that police had detained 157 people in connection with Sunday's clashes. Security sources said they numbered up to 250, but some of those may have been released during the day.