AP

Last updated: 3:15 am
July 6, 2009
Posted: 3:11 am
July 6, 2009

BEIJING — Chinese state media says that 140 people have been killed and more than 800 hurt in violence in the country’s western Xinjiang region.

The official Xinhua News Agency said today the toll “was still climbing.”

It earlier reported that four people had been killed in violence after protesters from a Muslim ethnic group rioted yesterday in the region’s capital Urumqi, overturning barricades and clashing with police.

The protesters were demanding an investigation into a fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese workers at a southern factory last month that state media said left two people dead.