Transportation in major cities continues to be paralysed as bus and taxi workers strike over cuts to fuel subsidies.

Protests over fuel subsidy cuts paralysed transportation in major Ecuadorean cities again on Friday, a day after unrest in which 275 people were arrested and 28 police officers were injured, the government said.

Witnesses said bus and taxi services remained on strike after fuel prices soared on Thursday following President Lenin Moreno’s fiscal measures earlier in the week.

On Thursday, police clashed with protesters in the worst unrest in years in the oil-producing nation of 17 million people.

Moreno – putting Ecuador on a more market-friendly track after years of left-wing rule and aligning policies to conform with a $4.2bn International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan – has scrapped decades-old fuel subsidies and announced tax reforms.

That has infuriated transport unions, whose action has been joined by indigenous groups, students and other unions.

By late Thursday, 275 people had been arrested and 28 police officers hurt, the Interior Ministry said.

As the government declared a state of emergency on Thursday, police deployed armoured vehicles and used tear gas to beat back demonstrators and keep them from reaching the presidential palace.

Ecuador has a long history of political instability.

Street protests toppled three presidents during economic turmoil in the decade before Moreno’s predecessor, Rafael Correa, took power in 2007.

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