Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday after hundreds of people were killed in a crackdown on demonstrations that began as protests against job quotas and swelled into a movement demanding her downfall.

Jubilant crowds stormed into the opulent grounds of the presidential residence unopposed, carrying out looted furniture and TVs. One man balanced a red velvet, gilt-edged chair on his head. Another held an armful of vases.

Elsewhere in Dhaka, protesters climbed atop a statue of Hasina's father, state founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and began chiselling away at the head with an axe.

The flight into exile ended a 15-year second stint in power for Hasina, who has ruled for 20 of the last 30 years as leader of the political movement inherited from her father, assassinated with most of his family in a 1975 coup.

Hasina had left the country for her own safety at the insistence of her family, her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy told the BBC World Service.