Beijing: It is the Sunday night TV viewing that keeps Hong Kong audiences horrified but transfixed. Now in its tenth week, the content has grown steadily more violent.

Riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets inside two subway stations in dramatic scenes on Sunday evening, with fiery sparks flying past the ticket turnstiles at Kwai Fong MTR station.

The scenes were broadcast live on Hong Kong television as news channels followed street clashes between democracy protesters and police across multiple sites in the city.

By the night's end, 45 people had been hospitalised, the youngest aged eight. A woman was shot in the eye by police. Thousands of protesters converged on Hong Kong's airport arrivals hall on Monday to chant "black police return the eye", after doctors warned she would likely lose her sight from the injury.