At the end of rescue operations, a total of 20 bodies have been found on the site of a powerful bombing that rocked the city's Interior Department in central Nazran Monday morning. Nazran is the regional capital of Russia's turbulent North Caucasus Republic of Ingushetia.

Photo shows police officers are on the alert at the site of an explosion in a police compound in Nazran, southern Russia, Aug.17, 2009. [Xinhua]

Six of the 20 bodies have been identified, and 118 people have been hospitalized, the Itar-Tass news agency quoted Ruslan Koloyev, acting minister for the republic's emergency situations, as saying.

"At about 9:00 a.m. Moscow time (0500 GMT), a suicide bomber driving a Gazelle rammed the gate of the City Interior Department, drove into the courtyard and activated the bomb in his vehicle," the Interfax news agency reported, citing an unnamed source from the Ingush Interior Ministry.

The powerful bomb was estimated to be equivalent to one ton of TNT. It has left a crater 4 meters wide and 1.5 to 2 meters deep, and huge fire with heavy smoke broke out on the site.

Zyaudin Dourbekov, a deputy interior minister, said Ingush police may have received a warning of a possible terror attack in Nazran on Saturday.

"The Gazelle vehicle driven by a suicide attacker was subject to a police hunt ... We had information about a terror attack being prepared using this vehicle back on Saturday," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.

People look on at the site of an explosion in a police compound in Nazran, southern Russia, Aug.17, 2009. [Xinhua]

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has expressed condolences to the relatives of the victims of the blast, and later he decided to sack the republic's interior minister.

Families of those who died in the blast will be given 100,000 rubles (3,226 US dollars) by the Ingush government. Those who were wounded will receive 50,000 rubles (1,613 dollars), said government spokeswoman Zhanna Almazova.

Acting Ingush leader Rashid Gaisanov claimed the blast was a terrorist attack, and has declared Aug. 17-19 as days of mourning in the republic.

"During the days of mourning, all culture and entertaining events are cancelled," said the republic's presidential press service.

In April, the Kremlin formally ended an anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, which has been ravaged by two wars in the past 15 years.

Chechnya, along with its neighboring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, has seen a rise of violence in recent months, with attacks on police, troops and authorities being reported almost daily.

Ingush Construction Minister Ruslan Amerkhanov was killed in his office last week. The leader of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, was injured in an assassination attempt in June.

Yevkurov, who had just been discharged from the hospital last week, accused Western forces in a radio interview of trying to destabilize the North Caucasus region.