MOSCOW, Sept. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The fighting between Russian special forces and the militants who had taken hundreds of children hostage in a southern Russian school are dying down, while reports here said seven people were killed when Russian forces stormed the besieged school about an hour ago.

    The storming ended a three-day hostage crisis and freed hundreds of children, parents and teachers held without food or water by militants demanding independence for Chechnya.

    Amid the cackle of gunfire and bursts of explosions, dozens of children, many wearing nothing but their underwear, were seen running out of the school into the arms of waiting troops. Later, soldiers were seen evacuating the injured on stretchers.

    Russian media said most of the children had survived, but an earlier report said the bodies of at least 10 people, children andadults, had been taken out on stretchers from the school in North Ossetia.

    Quoting local officials, the Itar-Tass news agency said about 310 people were wounded in the dramatic operation to end the hostage-taking, which began on Wednesday when masked militants, with explosives strapped around their waists, raided the school insouthern Russia.

    Earlier reports said five children were killed in the storming.

    Shortly after the children were freed, Russian special forces began to storm a residence where hostager-takers are hiding, looking for 13 abductors who managed to flee the scene of violence.

    The Interfax news agency said a small group of hostage takers who have managed to escape from the school were found hiding in a house adjacent to the building.

    The militants are holding out within the areas of the first ring of cordons established by Russian special forces and the hideout has been encircled by policemen.

    At least 200 children managed to flee the school when special forces commandoes stormed it.

    Gunfire and huge explosions continued even after the special forces took control of the school.

    Five hostage-takers were killed on the spot when the special forces began the operation. The forces were reportedly pursuing two other female kidnappers, dressed in white, who managed to fleethe sieged school towards the south of the town.

    Interfax said some of the hostage-takers, believed to number about 40, had tried to break out through crowds of frantic relatives waiting near the school as Russian special forces moved in.

    Earlier on Friday, Alexander Dzasokhov, president of the republic of North Ossetia, said the gunmen were demanding an independent Chechnya, the first clear link between them and the decade-long separatist rebellion in the neighboring Russian republic.

    At the beginning of the storming, the special forces had blown a hole in a school building to aid the hostages. Witnesses saw three armored personnel carriers with heavily armed soldiers on board approaching the school.

    The hostage crisis came after Russia suffered a series of terrorist attacks over the past week.

    An explosion near a metro station Tuesday in northeast Moscow killed 10 people and injured 37 others. The explosion came after Sunday's presidential election in Russia's Chechen republic, in which Kremlin-backed Alu Alkhanov won a landslide victory.

    Just five days before the election, two Russian passenger planes crashed almost simultaneously, killing all the 90 people aboard. The incidents aroused fears that terrorist attacks were behind the tragedies.

    A group called the "Islambouli Brigades" have claimed responsibility for the twin crashes and connected the crashes to the situation in Chechnya. Enditem