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LAGOS, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The Nigerian Red Cross said on Wednesday more than 1,100 people remained missing in Lagos three days after a cascade of deadly explosions at a military armoury in the city.

Workers pulled more than 600 bodies from two canals near a weapons dump that burst into flames on Sunday, a death toll that pictures and witness accounts suggested could soar even higher as pressure grew on authorities to explain the disaster.

Poorly equipped mortuaries have been stretched to the limit and attendants said they feared decomposing bodies could spark an epidemic in the metropolis of over 10 million people.

"We registered a total of 4,000 people reported missing between Sunday and yesterday," Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa said. "Out of this we found 2,825 as of last night."

Bawa said most of the missing were children aged between four and 11. The Red Cross was also looking after 15 children separated from their parents after exploding bombs triggered a mass stampede in chaotic Lagos, Africa's biggest city.

Newspapers said the final figure from a catastrophe that damaged a huge number of residential and public buildings could be more than 2,000.

Thousands of people mourning those killed faced the grim task on Wednesday of retrieving the bodies of loved ones before city authorities emptied mortuaries into mass graves.

"The bodies are already decomposing," said a mortuary attendant in the district of Isolo, in the neighbourhood of the Ikeja barracks where the armoury is located.

"This makes identification difficult, especially because they are in a pile," he added.

"I have been to three hospitals since this morning, but I don't even have the strength to look at the bodies," a woman said at the Ikeja General Hospital mortuary.

A distraught man trying to recover his son described the inside of the mortuary as "the most gory sight you can imagine".

He said attendants were demanding a bribe of 5,000 naira ($44), which he did not have, before releasing the child's body. It was a complaint heard across Lagos.

The government has released no overall casualty toll since Sunday's blasts.

As the scale of the tragedy became apparent on Tuesday, declared a national day of mourning, President Olusegun Obasanjo's government faced a storm of outrage.

Even some military officers privately dismissed the announcement by Defence Minister Theophilus Danjuma that a special army board would investigate the tragedy.

"I felt sick listening to the minister speak on television. His office is full of memos from military commanders on the need to move the armoury from a residential area," one told Reuters.

The lower-chamber House of Representatives ordered Obasanjo to cancel an official visit to the United States and Venezuela. A presidency official said the trip was off.

The upper-house Senate summoned Danjuma "to answer charges of negligence". Senators said a house committee ordered the armoury's relocation from Lagos' Ikeja district two years ago.

Most anger stemmed from what many said was the total absence of security agents to help during the stampede that followed the blast, in a city of over 10 million people.

Human rights lawyer Olisa Agbakoba contrasted Obasanjo's attitude with U.S. President George W. Bush's handling of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"This was almost our September 11," Agbakoba said. "Our president should sit down and direct things."

Member of Parliament Nduka Irabor said the president, who visited the devastated barracks on Monday, should have remained in Lagos rather than head off soon after for an official visit to a northern state.

Danjuma said the arms dump, storing Nigeria's most powerful bombs and other armaments, would be moved, amid growing speculation the devastation was not an accident.

"Anything already said by any military officer is premature," Danjuma said during a sympathy call on Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu.

The commander of the Ikeja cantonment, Brigadier-General George Emdin, went on state television to dispel rumours that the explosions were the beginnings of a coup.

Military officials had said the blasts were caused by a fire in a market near the armoury. (additional reporting by Tume Ahemba) Nampa-Reuters

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