Hong Kong shuts down trains in emergency declaration that enraged protesters

Hong Kong shut down all train service on Friday as part of an emergency declaration aimed at stopping the massive protests that have flooded the streets for four straight months.

The new emergency law will allow Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam to impose mainland-style curfews, censorship of media and messaging and tighter controls of ports and transportation. Besides the trains shutting down, no other moves have been announced.

Within hours, masked protesters took to the streets to protest the law, which hadn't been invoked for 50 years, in a sign that Lam's move had spectacularly backfired. Last weekend, a Hong Kong police officer shot a teenager in the chest when protests turned violent in the streets.

Protesters had avoided violence in the first months but the situation deteriorated after police allegedly used local triad gangsters to beat crowds in a train station with metal poles.

The financial hub has seen a sharp decline in retail and tourism from the protests as Chinese from the mainland make up the vast majority of visitors.

The Chinese Communist Party's office in charge of Hong Kong praised Lam's move, saying that the million or more protesters supported a regime change in the city.