Loyalist rioters attacked police with petrol bombs and hijacked cars and buses in fresh rioting in the North last night.
A mechanical digger was also taken by rioters and used to rob a bank ATM. The vehicle was then driven down the Albertbridge Road, damaging lampposts and causing extensive damage to property before it was abandoned. Police said officers had "come under sustained attack" in the area which was the scene of serious disturbances on Saturday.
In Newtownabbey, on the outskirts of north Belfast, rioters pelted police with petrol bombs. A bank in the Cloughfern Corner area was set alight during the violence. There was also trouble in the Ballyclare Road area of Glengormley.
Elsewhere in Belfast, gangs hijacked cars and set them on fire. Motorists were advised not to use the Westlink, a main thoroughfare which links the two main motorways. Gangs stopped cars in the vicinity of the Donegall Road roundabout and at the Roden Street junction.
Near Ardoyne in north Belfast police said more than 70 rioters attacked police with petrol bombs. Many rioters were masked and the numbers involved in the violence increased steadily towards midnight.
In Bangor, Co Down, a gang hijacked a bus and ordered the driver to take them to a housing estate. Passengers were robbed before being told to get off the bus which was then placed across the road and set on fire.
Police also said the first charges have been made following the violence in the city on Saturday and the early hours of Sunday. A 48-year-old man and a youth aged 16 are due in court this morning.
Blast bombs, petrol bombs and other missiles were used by hundreds of rioting loyalists on Saturday. The PSNI returned fire in Belfast, where the violence following a disputed Orange parade was both severe and widespread.
The trouble flared in mid-afternoon on Saturday in west Belfast as the annual Whiterock Orange parade was denied access by the PSNI to a nationalist section of the Springfield Road in accordance with a rerouting order by the Parades Commission.
Nationalist youths and children, stoned police and British army convoys as they passed the nationalist New Lodge area to confront the loyalists who had attacked a bus and stoned journalists, including an RTÉ camera crew.
After nightfall on Saturday, the PSNI reported a spate of street disturbances and arson incidents across east and north Belfast, as well as in towns and villages across south Antrim and as far north as Ballymena and Larne.
Rival gangs near Short Strand in east Belfast stoned each other yesterday afternoon. A bus was set alight in Antrim town.
Nationalists blamed the Orange Order and loyalist paramilitaries, who are supposedly on ceasefire, for the trouble. Unionists claimed the trouble was a direct result of rising Protestant frustration at what they see as a series of political "concessions" to republicans. They said PSNI tactics and British government indifference to loyalist concerns had combined to create a very dangerous climate.