Beslan, Russia ? A shaken President Vladimir Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness Saturday in the face of an “all-out war” by terrorists after more than 350 people — nearly half of them children — were killed in a hostage-taking at a southern school.

Putin went on national television to tell Russians they must mobilize against terrorism. He promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen security forces and purge corruption.

“We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten,” he said in a speech aimed at addressing the grief, shock and anger felt by many after a string of attacks that have killed some 450 people in the past two weeks, apparently in connection with the war in Chechnya.

Shocked relatives wandered among row after row of bodies lined up in black or clear plastic body bags on the pavement at a morgue in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, where the dead from the school standoff in the town of Beslan were taken. In some open bags lay the contorted, thin bodies of children, some monstrously charred.

In Beslan, people scoured lists of names to see if their loved ones survived the chaos of the day before, when the standoff turned violent Friday as militants set off explosives in the school and commandos moved in to seize the building.

Beslan residents were allowed to enter the burned-out husk that was once the gymnasium of School No. 1, where more than 1,000 hostages were held during the 62-hour ordeal that started Wednesday.

Regional Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev said 323 people, including 156 children, were killed. More than 540 people were wounded, mostly children.

Dzgoyev also said 35 attackers were killed in 10 hours of battles that shook the area with gunfire and explosions.

Ossetians read lists of those hostages who escaped from a seized school outside Beslan's hospital, Northern Ossetia. The death toll from Friday's day of chaos rose to more than 350 Saturday, and some families still were struggling to determine what had happened to their loved ones.