Jakarta – At least five people were killed and four injured in renewed clashes between local Malays and settlers in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo on Thursday, reports and the military said.

The casualties brought the total known killed and injured since the clashes first erupted late on Wednesday over a minor traffic accident in the capital city of Pontianak to six dead and eight injured. The accident involved a Malay motorcyclist and a bus driver from Madura, off east Java.

Thursday's fatalities were identified by the state Antara news agency as two unidentified men in the city's Sungai Jawi area and three others near Pahlawan street. Antara also said that four men suffering various injuries had also been admitted late Thursday to the state Sudarso hospital.

West Kalimantan police chief Brigadier General Atok Krismanto was quoted by the SCTV private television as saying that he had instructed his men to carry out a shoot to kill orders – if needed – to stop the fighting. Huge columns of smoke could still be seen from many parts of Pontianak until late Thursday, Antara said.

Earlier on Thursday, military police First Lieutenant Hadiono told AFP from Pontianak that "one man died in a skirmish following the accident" on Wednesday, which also injured two civilians and two policemen. "Street stalls which had been abandoned by the Madurese were also set on fire from around 6pm until midnight," he said, adding that the victim's identity was unknown.

Pontianak had been "under control" early on Thursday, Hadiono said, but fighting erupted again just before midday between the two feuding ethnic groups in the Sungai Jawi Dalam area of the city. A male nurse, who identified himself only as Iwan, at the Sudarso state hospital told AFP a Madurese man was admitted at around noon with injuries to his chest and face.

First Sergeant Ismail of Pontianak military police told AFP that joint security troops had set up road blocks in the city's main streets. He said four of Pontianak's main markets were closed and that many Chinese-owned businesses had also downed their shutters. "The city is still quite tense, everybody prefers to stay inside their homes ... but we're still on guard," Ismail said.

The Madurese, a hardworking but aggressive ethnic group, were the target of violent attacks by Malays, backed up by indigenous Dayak tribesmen, in West Kalimantan in 1999. Some 3,000 people perished in the months of violence there last year and tens of thousands of migrants were displaced. Borneo island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.