Why Does This CBS Reporter Have Tears Running Down Her Face During Live Report?

The tear gas was so thick in Taksim Square in Istanbul, CBS News correspondent Holly Williams had tears rolling down her face during her live shot on the CBS Evening News on Tuesday.

Her eyes watering and her blouse trickled with tears, Williams fought through the discomfort and delivered her report.

Watch the video via CBS News below:

Riot police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets in day-long clashes that lasted into the early hours Wednesday, overwhelming protesters who had been occupying Istanbul's central Taksim Square and its adjacent Gezi Park in the country's most severe anti-government protests in decades.

The crisis has left Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan looking vulnerable for the first time in his decade in power and has threatened to tarnish the international image of Turkey, a Muslim majority country with a strongly secular tradition, a burgeoning economy and close ties with the United States.

Thousands of police moved in early Tuesday, pushing past improvised barricades set up by the protesters who have swarmed through the massive square and accompanying Gezi Park in their tens of thousands for the past 12 days.

Police fired repeated rounds of tear gas that rose in stinging plumes of acrid smoke from the square in running battles with protesters hurling fireworks, bottles, rocks and firebombs. In a cat-and-mouse game that lasted all day, the police repeatedly cleared the square, only for demonstrators to return.

More than 30,000 converged on the square again as dusk fell and were repelled by water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas after Istanbul's governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, said the police came under attack by "marginal groups."

The area reverberated with the echoes of exploding tear gas canisters into the night, while volunteers ferried dozens of injured people to waiting ambulances.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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