Myanmar security forces fired shots and arrested about 30 people at an anti-coup rally in the country's second-biggest city on Wednesday, witnesses said, as protesters kept defying a months-long crackdown by a junta struggling to impose order, Reuters reported.

Chaos erupted in Mandalay when plainclothes police emerged from vehicles minutes into a protest, firing guns and beating demonstrators who fell as hundreds fled, according to four witnesses. They said they saw about 30 people arrested.