Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez has taken refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Quito after being ousted by Congress last night.
Mr Gutierrez, the third president of the Andean nation to be toppled amid popular unrest in eight years, was replaced by his vice-president after escalating clashes between protesters in which two people were reported killed.
Ecuadoran President Lucio Gutierrez
A military helicopter flew him from the presidential palace in downtown Quito after 60 congressmen from the 100-seat chamber voted to fire him for "abandoning his post".
Brazil's foreign ministry said in a statement issued in Brasilia later that Mr Gutierrez was in the Brazilian embassy in Quito.
Congress named Vice President Alfredo Palacio to serve out the rest of Mr Gutierrez's four-year term, which expires in January 2007, but the move drew immediate counter-protests.
Several hundred demonstrators briefly trapped Mr Palacio in the building where he was sworn in and demanded that he dissolve parliament and call early elections.
Mr Palacio, a 66-year-old cardiologist who had been a prominent critic of his former boss and his economic policies, said he would consider an early election but could not dissolve Congress.
Before the fate of Mr Gutierrez became clear, plumes of smoke rose over parts of the city as rival groups of protesters ran riot. At one point anti-government demonstrators broke into the Congress building, smashing windows and chairs in the chamber.
The state prosecutor's office said it ordered Mr Gutierrez's arrest for two deaths during the demonstrations.
Opposition congressmen, who accused Mr Gutierrez of being a dictator after his move last December to fill the Supreme Court with political allies, said he had effectively abandoned his post by failing to properly carry out presidential duties.
In 2000, Mr Gutierrez himself helped topple President Jamil Mahuad. He was briefly jailed for leading a coup and was elected in late 2002 with support largely from the poor.
Although the economy in the oil-rich country, also the world's biggest exporter of bananas, has been flourishing there has been little relief for the country's poor, and Mr Gutierrez's support has plummeted.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Ecuadoreans today to eschew violence and follow the constitution to hold fresh elections.
"We are simply asking everyone to keep calm in the area. There should be no violence. There needs now to be a constitutional process to get to elections, if that is what is in the future," Ms Rice said on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Lithuania.
"This is really a time for the entire region, in particular, and international community to try to put a ... democratic process there and a constitutional process."