Troops patrolled the streets of a central Myanmar town Saturday after Buddhist-Muslim unrest tore through the area leaving at least 20 dead and spurring the government to declare emergency rule.

Around 50 military trucks were deployed in Meiktila, where homes and mosques have been torched by mobs armed with knives and sticks in three days of communal rioting.

Myanmar declared a state of emergency Friday for a riot-hit town where 20 people have been killed in Buddhist-Muslim violence that has sparked fears of spreading unrest.

Swathes of Meiktila, located 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the capital Naypyidaw, have been reduced to ashes as the authorities struggle to establish control after three days of clashes and arson.

Freshly dumped hypodermic syringes litter alleys, cemeteries and shaded corners in Myitkyina, the provincial capital of Kachin state, on Myanmar's northern border with China.

Myitkyina is known for having one of the highest concentrations of drug addicts in the world. The Kachin Baptist Convention, an evangelical group with more than 300 churches in the state, says nearly 80 percent of ethnic Kachin youth are addicts. Their drug of choice is heroin.

At least 10 people have been killed in riots in central Myanmar, a local MP said Thursday, prompting U.S. concern at the worst communal unrest since Buddhist-Muslim clashes in western Rakhine state last year.

Huge plumes of black smoke were seen rising above the town of Meiktila as buildings were set ablaze in a second day of fighting in the area, where several mosques were reported to have been torched.

President Thein Sein on Monday became Myanmar's first head of state to visit Australia since 1974, winning aid and defense concessions as he reaps new fruits of his liberalization policies.

As the once pariah country approaches the second anniversary of a quasi-civilian regime led by the ex-general taking power, Canberra said it was increasing its support to recognize the reforms.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt will visit Myanmar next week, highlighting increasing Internet freedom in the former pariah state just weeks after a controversial trip to communist North Korea.

Schmidt will speak in Yangon on March 22 as part of an Asian tour, the Internet giant said, aiming to boost web access in the country, ruled for decades by a repressive military junta.

The United States said it condemned any use of phosphorus as a crowd control measure after an official Myanmar report Tuesday found the toxic agent had been used to end a rally at a copper mine.

Dozens of people, including monks, were injured in the November clampdown, many suffering burns from the white phosphorus, according to a parliamentary report led by opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar's government and Kachin rebels have agreed to continue talks to reach an elusive ceasefire during peace discussions hosted by China, the warring rivals said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Representatives of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) -- and its armed wing the KIA -- met government officials led by President's Office Minister Aung Min in the Chinese border town of Ruili on Monday and Tuesday.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been elected head of the new executive board of Myanmar's opposition National League for Democracy, as the party has a makeover to adjust itself to the country's new democratic framework.

A landmark three-day party congress attended by 894 delegates from around the country on Sunday expanded the group's Central Executive Committee from seven members to 15, with an addition five reserve members, in a revitalization and reform effort ahead of the 2015 general election.

At a small and peaceful clinic on the outskirts of Yangon, 20 volunteers tend to 300 HIV patients abandoned by a health care system allowed to crumble during decades of brutal military rule in Myanmar.

In a country whose rulers long prioritized military spending over the needs of their people, these men, women and children have found a refuge thanks to the work of a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party.