As protesters defied a ban on large gatherings and their numbers grew into the hundreds of thousands on Tuesday, police fired warning shots and rubber bullets, and some injuries were reported including a young woman on life support after being shot in the head.

Protests continued Wednesday, including in the largest city Yangon and the capital Naypyidaw.

Authorities on Tuesday night searched the Yangon headquarters of the National League for Democracy, the party of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained since the Feb. 1 takeover.

With Suu Kyi and other senior party officials detained, and other NLD offices already searched, there is a mounting fear that the military may seek to dissolve the party.

"We strongly condemn violence against demonstrators," US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday. "All individuals in Burma have rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, including for the purposes of peaceful protest," the spokesman said, using another name for the Southeast Asian country.

The US government calls on the military to give up power, release those who have been detained, and refrain from violence, Price said, suggesting that the government may unveil a new policy on the country in the coming days.

Following the coup, the administration of President Joe Biden has been weighing such measures as reducing aid to Myanmar and imposing sanctions on the country.

Also Tuesday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told the European Parliament that the European Union is weighing sanctions against Myanmar, including "additional targeted sanctions on individuals and on businesses owned by the military."

Borrell floated the possibilities of reviewing development assistance to Myanmar and restricting trade with the country, but cautioned against "rushing into measures that would adversely affect the most vulnerable part of the population."

EU member countries are set to discuss the matter at a foreign ministers' meeting on Feb. 22. The European Union has already imposed an arms export ban on Myanmar and sanctions on military leaders over the treatment of minority Rohingya Muslims.

The Myanmar military launched the coup after rejecting the results of last November's general election, which Suu Kyi's NLD won by a landslide. The NLD, which came to power in 2016 following a landslide victory in the 2015 general election, was set to start a second term in government.

The military has promised to hold an election after a one-year state of emergency, with power transferred to the winning party.

Large protests erupted Saturday and have been held every day since. Authorities have imposed a ban on gatherings of more than four people as well as a nighttime curfew on parts of the country, including Yangon, Naypyidaw and the second-largest city Mandalay.

On Tuesday, the Naypyidaw Government Hospital admitted two protesters with bullet wounds, one with a terminal wound to the head and the other hit in the chest but in less serious condition, a doctor at the hospital told local media.

The doctor, who was not identified, said the head trauma patient was on life support without long to live, while the other's injury is not life-threatening.

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