A violent crackdown on a popular uprising in Burma is intensifying. At least nine people were killed Thursday when police opened fire on thousands of demonstrators in the city of Rangoon. There are fears the death toll could be several times more. The Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai was among the dead. Video footage shows him shot point-blank as soldiers charge the crowds. The junta is also trying to stem the flow of information, cutting cellphones and completely blocking public Internet use. British Ambassador Mark Canning described Thursday’s developments.

Mark Canning: “There was a much more visible troop presence on the streets. There were some prison vans on the streets. There were some water cannons. And there was troops stationed in a lot of the strategic areas. The main pagodas were wired off — the Shwedagon and the Sule — where the protesters had been gathering. But the protesters still came out, and they confronted the troops and the police. There had been, as I say, sporadic but quite serious violence in town.”