Lagos, Nigeria ? A week after massive explosions ripped though Lagos neighborhoods, officials on Saturday revealed the extent of the disaster: More than 1,000 people had died, mainly children who drowned in a canal as they fled in panic.

The new death toll 400 more than previously estimated was announced as the Nigerian Red Cross suspended its aid operations after military officials ordered the organization to hand over its relief supplies.

Relatives wait at the morgue to take away for a funeral one of the people who died during the Jan. 27 explosions in an army dump in Lagos, Nigeria. The official death toll Saturday stands at more than 1,000.

Home Affairs Commissioner Musiliu Obanikoro said the casualty count came after rescue efforts uncovered more bodies from a canal where hundreds of victims, many of them women and children, had drowned.

“From everything I have seen, as more bodies have been found over the days, the number of people who are deceased is now over 1,000 people,” he said.

Obanikoro, speaking on the private Lagos radio station Rhythm 93.7 FM, said the search for more victims was tapering off. Lagos State Information Commissioner Dele Alake said authorities believed the latest toll was “close to” a final tally.

Staggering number killed

More than 700 bodies have been brought to mortuaries and the remaining 300 were claimed by individuals for private burials, Alake said.

Thousands fled last Sunday night after a chain of explosions erupted at an army base in the northern Ikeja neighborhood in Nigeria’s crowded commercial capital.

The blasts lasted for hours, propelling shells and flaming debris for miles. Officials are still investigating the cause of the explosions.

Families of the victims have directed their anger at Nigeria’s military for storing munitions in a heavily populated area. The army has promised to investigate, but many political leaders blame the military and are calling for an independent inquiry.

Nigerian authorities were planning a mass burial, possibly for Monday or Tuesday, for many of the unclaimed bodies. Dozens of decomposing corpses could be seen Saturday at the Ikeja hospital mortuary, where a few families waited outside for permission to remove the remains of loved ones.

Alake said a few bodies were still being recovered Saturday from the Oke Afa canal, where hundreds drowned. Navy patrol teams have begun searching other waterways.

Red Cross suspends operations

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa, meanwhile, said the organization suspended its aid operations on Saturday and locked up all its food and other provisions, which were stored inside the Ikeja army base.

Its efforts to reunite families with hundreds still missing were also temporarily stopped, Bawa said.

The moves came after the army ordered the Red Cross to hand over all supplies, Bawa said, adding the agency was bound by its convention to refuse.

An announcer on the private Super Screen television station said station officials had been blocked by soldiers from delivering aid donated by viewers.

Military officials had no immediate comment.

Bawa said the army’s latest demands did not appear to be linked to a fire that destroyed a Red Cross warehouse on Friday.

The warehouse, located inside an army base in Yaba and about 5 miles from the one at Ikeja, contained blankets and other nonfood relief supplies worth $330,000.

It wasn’t clear what caused the blaze. No casualties were reported, Nigerian Red Cross President Emmanuel Ijewere said.

The Red Cross has reunited 1,800 children with their parents and has been feeding 11,500 displaced people.

The scale of the tragedy has shocked even the trouble-hardened people of this oil-rich nation, which has been plagued for years with ethnic, political and religious conflict.

Outbreaks of violence have killed thousands since President Olusegun Obasanjo won 1999 elections ending 15 years of oppressive military rule.

The country’s fragile stability took yet another blow when police officers went on strike Friday for the first time. Nigerian authorities were not linking the strike to the explosions.

By Saturday, the protest appeared to have collapsed after the government ordered the army into the streets and officers who took part in the strike were threatened with dismissal and prosecution.