Hostage families return to school

Watch the latest pictures from Beslan

Families of people held for three days in a southern Russian school have been allowed to go to the scene, a day after the siege ended in terror and carnage.

The relatives wept as they surveyed the ruins, covered in ash and littered with shell casings from the final battle.

Some do not even know if their loved ones are dead or alive, as a final list of casualties is still pending.

President Vladimir Putin called on the Russian people to stand together and confront the threat of terrorism.

In a televised address to the nation, he said the country had to stand up to terror, as the alternative meant submitting to blackmail or giving in to panic.

Today we must be together - this is the only way for us to defeat the enemy President Vladimir Putin Speech excerpts

He proposed a new approach to law enforcement and vowed to increase border security.

The BBC's Humphrey Hawksley in Moscow says Mr Putin was in effect laying down the markers for the sort of country he wants to create, drawing on nostalgia for the Soviet Union and suggesting that there was no longer a place for Boris Yeltsin's Russia of the 1990s.

Bodies recovered

Mr Putin announced two days of national mourning for the victims of the siege in Beslan, North Ossetia, on 6 and 7 September.

Officials said 330 people are now known to have died, about half of them children. More than 200 have been identified.

1 - At 0850GMT a vehicle from the emergencies ministry is sent in to retrieve the bodies of those killed at the start of the siege. 2 - A series of blasts rock the gym, bringing the roof down. 3 - Hostages start running. The attackers fire at them to try to block their escape, prompting the troops outside to shoot back. How the siege ended

Hundreds of others are still in hospital, many of them badly burned or with gunshot and shrapnel wounds.

The Russian authorities are now saying that all the hostage-takers - who they say numbered 26 - were killed in gun battles on Friday, despite earlier reports that some had been captured and others escaped.

Children at the school had been celebrating the start of the new school year with parents and staff when they were seized by militants on Wednesday morning.

There was carnage on Friday as Russian troops moved in to end the siege after explosions were heard inside the building.

The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Beslan says there were angry scenes on Saturday, with many relatives accusing the government of denying them information about their loved ones.

Some are asking, she says, how the extremists ever seized the school in the first place and whether their arsenal were smuggled in before the attack.

There is also anger towards Mr Putin - many have said that his visit to Beslan in the early hours of Saturday morning was too brief and too late.

But the Russian president warned locals not to give in to their fury and seek revenge for the tragedy.

If the toddlers started to cry, the fighters would fire blanks in the air Eyewitness: School bloodbath Your reaction

Mr Putin said the whole of Russia was suffering deeply and grieving with the families in Beslan, to whose courage he paid tribute.

He said the ordeals had brought the Russian people closer together.

"Today we must be together," he said. "This is the only way for us to defeat the enemy."