Horrifying pictures of masked gunmen rigging a gym with explosives crammed with hundreds of terrified children sparked revulsion in Russia Wednesday as authorities put a 10 million-dollar reward on the heads of two top Chechen leaders.

Russian television late Tuesday screened video footage of the scene inside the gym at the school in southern Beslan seized a week ago by gunmen demanding independence for Chechnya.

"These are people are animals," Olga Beovayeva, a 60-year-old, said in Beslan after seeing the images on Russia's NTV television network, as the death toll from the bloody standoff climbed to 336.

Russian authorities meanwhile announced they would pay a 300 million-ruble (10 million-dollar) reward for information leading to the "neutralization" of two top Chechen rebel leaders Chechen rebel leaders Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev.

The airing of the video footage came hours after tens of thousands of people rallied on a square beside the Kremlin in a government-

approved demonstration against terror and in remembrance of the Beslan victims.

The 87-second tape showed hundreds of school children, parents and teachers packed into North Ossetia school where they were seated on the gym floor in muted fear, many visibly sweating, as hostage-takers stood over them.

The video showed home-made bombs suspended from wires that ran the length of the gymnasium attached to two basketball hoops.

At one point a masked man holding an automatic rifle is seen pointing forcefully to an object under his foot that looked like a book but that had wires running to it. A television commentator said it was a mine.

A young boy, hands on his head, cowered at the man's feet while in a darkened doorway a woman dressed all in black and wearing an explosive-packed suicide belt brandished a pistol.

"Do not bring in the children here yet," one man was heard yelling in accented Russian as another continued to string up wires and rig explosives in the gym, stepping amid streaks of blood on the floor.

The video images sparked a fierce reaction among Russians and the mood across the country Wednesday, exactly a week after about 1,000 hostages were seized, was a mix of inconsolable grief and mounting rage.

"You can never forget this," said one woman in Beslan who would give her name only as Lisa. "How can you forget this when so many children died this way? They will be in our memory for years."

Russian news agencies meanwhile reported that the FSB security service had put up a huge reward for information Maskhadov and Basayev.

Maskhadov served as president of Chechnya during a brief period of de facto independence in the second half of the 1990s, while Basayev is a noted rebel fighter who has claimed responsibility for many attacks against Russian troops.

Officials have accused both men of involvement in the Beslan school hostage-taking. Through a spokesman however Maskhadov has denied any responsibility in the tragedy.