Viktor Beltsov, spokesman for the Chechen Emergency Situation Ministry, said 46 people were confirmed dead in the blasts and 76 wounded, the Interfax news agency said.

Russian news agencies said rescuers had removed 30 dead bodies from under the debris and were finding fragments of other bodies as they scrabbled through the rubbles.

The explosions went off almost simultaneously at about 14:30 Moscow time (1130 GMT). About 200 people usually worked in the building, officials said.

Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Tsakayev said two suicide bombers in a pair of trucks roared up to the government compound and blew them up.

Chechen Prosecutor Valery Kravchenko said the explosions were equivalent to one ton of TNT, and had left the government building" absolutely destroyed"

The blasts also wiped out a cafeteria and damaged several nearby buildings, including that of Chechnya's federal security service and the finance ministry, he said.

Television footage showed windows of the administration building were blown out and one of its wings destroyed. Much of the main structure was also left a shell.

A 6-meter-wide crater yawned in front of the building and a square nearby is covered with debris, with some bleeding people stumbling out of the rubbles.

Kravchenko said Chechnya's leadership was not injured in the blasts, but Interfax later quoted hospital sources as saying that the Chechen Security Council chief Rudnik Dudayev and Zina Batyzheva, a deputy Chechen prime minister, were seriously wounded.

The presidential press service said the blasts were immediately reported to President Vladimir Putin. Some 40 rescuers and doctors from the Emergency Situation Ministry are working on the scene, Russian news agencies said.

It was the biggest Chechen rebel attack since gunmen seized a Moscow theater in October, in which 41 raiders and 129 hostages were killed.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2002)