Three die as Greece torn apart by rioting over cuts

George Papandreou said those responsible would be found and brought to justice, telling Parliament "a demonstration is one thing and murder is quite another".

An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets yesterday during nationwide strikes against austerity measures to save Greece from bankruptcy.

Protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at police and buildings. At least two other buildings were set on fire, while hundreds of people were involved in running clashes with riot police.

Fire Brigade spokesman Panayiotis Falaras said the three bodies were found in the remains of the fire-bombed bank and another five people were rescued from the burning building's balcony.

The service claimed protesters blocked access to the building and have blamed the demonstrators for the deaths of the man and two women.

"We took 15 minutes to get to the site because it was very difficult to get there," Mr Falaras said, adding that it was not clear whether those who died had suffocated from the smoke or burned to death.

Parliament held a minute of silence for the dead and some media – including state television and the Ta Nea newspaper website – later broke the strike to report on the deaths.

The Marfin Bank branch had been fire-bombed by protesters marching in the city centre.

Demonstrators chanting "thieves, thieves" attempted to break through a riot police cordon guarding Parliament and chased the ceremonial guards away from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Union reaction until now had been relatively muted, although the country has been hit by a series of strikes. But anger has mounted after the announcement of new austerity measures, which were essential to unlock the loans.

On Sunday Prime Minister George Papandreou announced cuts in salaries and pensions for civil servants, and another round of consumer tax increases, as a condition of the bailout.

The loans are aimed at preventing Athens' debt troubles from becoming a wider crisis for the euro by engulfing other financially troubled countries such as Spain and Portugal.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel urged parliament to quickly pass the country's share of the bail-out – 22bn euro (19bn) over three years. The aim is to pass the bill by Friday; Greece has to pay back debts by May 19 and says it can't repay without the bail-out.

"Nothing less than the future of Europe, and with that the future of Germany in Europe, is at stake," Merkel told lawmakers. "We are at a fork in the road."

Extensive clashes took place across a broad swathe of central Athens, with hundreds of people battering store fronts and smashing paving stones to throw at the police, who responded with stun grenades and volleys of tear gas that left clouds of smoke hovering over the streets.

Violence also broke out in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where another 20,000 people marched through the city centre.

The marches came amid a 24-hour nationwide general strike that grounded all flights to and from Greece, shut down ports, schools and government services and left hospitals working with emergency medical staff.

The Acropolis and all other ancient sites were closed, while journalists also walked off the job, suspending television and radio news broadcasts.

Eurozone backed 95bn bail-out

Europe's single-currency countries last week backed the 95bn bail-out for crisis-stricken Greece.

Under the deal a total of 69bn will be loaned by the 15 other single-currency countries, with the rest supplied by the International Monetary Fund.

The rescue is aimed at keeping Greece from defaulting on its debts and preventing its financial crisis from infecting other indebted countries, chiefly Portugal and Spain.

But the loans were only agreed on the basis it imposed a strict economic plan to help to restore solvency. The measures include cuts in civil servants' salaries and tax increases that aim to cut the deficit to below three per cent of gross domestic product by 2014.