The grim task of recovering bodies continued Saturday at the North Caucasus school where a hostage drama came to a violent end at the cost of at least 250 lives.
By midday 210 corpses had been recovered, officials said. Earlier North Ossetia's Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev said that a death toll of at least 250 was probable.
Numerous explosive devices set by the hostage-takers in the school building in the town of Beslan in the republic of North Ossetia had to be defused before the recovery of the victims could begin.
The rescue work had to be frequently interrupted for the removal of debris and so further explosive devices could be defused.
Most of the hostages killed in Friday's bloody end to the school siege died as a result of terrorist bombs and falling debris, Russian police in North Ossetia said on Saturday.
Explosive devices packed with bolts and nails were detonated among around 1,000 hostages packed into the school sports hall, causing the roof to collapse.
Meanwhile the Russian security forces announced on Saturday that their operations were over.
"The operation was successful," said Director of the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB) in North Ossetia, Valeri Andreyev.
The death toll of terrorists, both Russian citizens and foreigners, was officially placed at over 30. An unspecified number of Russian special forces were also killed.
The end of the siege on Friday as special forces stormed the building saw 704 people wounded, including more than 200 children.
"We are operating around the clock," said a doctor at a hospital in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia's capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beslan on Saturday and went directly from the airport to a hospital where many injured hostages were being treated, before meeting North Ossetia's leadership.
Doctors and medical equipment were flown on Saturday to Beslan to help treat the wounded, government officials in Moscow said. Two planes carrying staff and emergency supplies landed in Vladikavkaz.
At least 100 seriously injured children were fighting for their lives, Russian media reported. A Moscow radio station said hospitals in the capital were also preparing to receive injured.
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