By Jason Szep and Ambika Ahuja
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai authorities restored order in Bangkok on Thursday after a night of rioting and fires that veered towards anarchy as troops took control of a camp occupied by thousands of anti-government protesters for six weeks.
The mostly rural and urban poor protesters had deserted their once-barricaded 3 sq-km (1.2 sq-mile) rally site in central Bangkok. Hundreds who had taken refuge in a temple were coaxed out by police. Six bodies were found inside.
Troops had faced heavy resistance overnight by about 1,500 remnants of the red-shirted protesters, some armed with guns, at the temple in a standoff the military-backed government described as organised by terrorists. By morning it was over.
"This was organised violence," said government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn.
A curfew in Bangkok and 23 provinces was extended for another three nights, raising questions of whether authorities feared more unrest in the deeply polarised country.
"The crisis of the past few weeks has ... only deepened the divisions within Thailand, which will sustain political tensions and lead to opportunistic political attacks," said Roberto Herrera-Lim, Asia director of the New York-based Eurasia Group.
In the north and northeast provinces, a red shirt stronghold home to just over half of Thailand's 67 million people, there were scattered signs of violence overnight. But trouble spots were quiet on Thursday and protest leaders urged calm.
"Democracy cannot be built on revenge and anger," Veera Musikapong, chairman of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, better known as the "red shirts," said in a televised statement after he was taken into police custody.
Army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said about 13,000 people were still "actively waiting to riot and perpetrate illegal acts" in provinces under a state of emergency.
In Bangkok, fires at 39 sites still simmered but most had been extinguished. Central World, Southeast Asia's second-biggest department store and a symbol of wealth, was destroyed. Many of its supporting steel beams had collapsed.
'WOUNDED HEARTS AND MINDS'
The protesters' tented encampment in the heart of Bangkok's commercial district -- an area lined with luxury hotels and shopping plazas -- was strewn with rubbish, clothing and the smell of refuse and human waste. Troops roamed the area and some were positioned on an overhead subway system.
There were no signs of clashes.
Groups of soldiers sat on a sidewalk near the twisted wreckage of trucks that had been packed with explosives and blown up at barricades overnight. In contrast to the tension of recent days in the area, they looked relaxed, smiling at journalists.
Ten journalists have been shot in six days of violence, including an Italian cameraman killed on Wednesday.
The surrender of key protest leaders on Wednesday and a seeming end for now to violence that has killed at least 51 people and wounded nearly 400 in six days could put the focus back on early elections and a "reconciliation roadmap" the prime minister had proposed before the latest bout of violence.
"We can immediately fix the roads but we do not know how long it will take to fix the wounded hearts and minds of the people," Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra told local television.
The red shirts want fresh elections, saying Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva lacks a popular mandate after coming to power in a controversial parliamentary vote in 2008 with tacit military support. Abhisit last week withdrew an offer of fresh elections.
The unrest has hammered Thailand's lucrative tourism industry, which supports six percent of Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy and employs 15 percent of Thailand's workforce directly or indirectly.
A source at state planning agency National Economic and Social Development Board said the economic impact of nine weeks of political turmoil and rioting would easily cost $3 billion, or about one percentage point of gross domestic product.
"Although the protest and political tension may have past its worst stage, the impact and related losses are higher than people have expected. What we need to see is how long will it take to regain confidence of foreign tourists and investors," said the official, who declined to be identified to speak freely.
Among the buildings badly damaged was the stock exchange, which will be closed on Thursday and Friday. The Bank of Thailand said banks around the country would also stay shut. The whole week has been declared a public holiday.
Television channels have been ordered to air only sanctioned programmes. They broadcast images of bulldozers pushing aside tyre and bamboo barricades as workers in trucks, under the protection of troops, cleaned up the protest camp site.
A single red shirt flag in the rubble flew limply in the morning breeze until it was crushed by a bulldozer.
Authorities imposed the curfew on 24 provinces -- about a third of the total -- after outbursts of unrest in seven regions. Town halls were set ablaze in three northern areas.
The protesters are mostly drawn from the rural and urban poor and largely back former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist tycoon who was ousted in a 2006 coup and now lives in self-imposed exile to avoid a jail term for graft.
The demonstrations began as festive street rallies in March before descending into Thailand's deadliest political violence in nearly 20 years with gun battles in April followed by chaotic urban warfare in May.
Thaksin told Reuters the crackdown could spawn guerrilla warfare.
More than 70 people have been killed and nearly 2,000 wounded since the protests began.
Early this month, Abhisit offered an election in November, just over a year before he needed to call one, but talks foundered and that offer was taken off the table.
(Additional reporting by Ambika Ahuja, Nopporn Wong-Anan and Vithoon Amorn; Writing by Jason Szep; editing by Bill Tarrant)