TASMANIANS' FURY GROWS; VICTIMS BURIED.

Byline: Geoff Spencer Associated Press 

Tiny flames flickered at the base of a simple wooden crucifix Wednesday - one candle for each of the 35 people methodically shot to death as they visited a popular tourist site.

Hundreds of mourners prayed at Hobart's St. David's Anglican Cathedral for the victims, ages 3 to 72. And as residents of Tasmania grieve for the dead, their anger at the murder suspect grows.

Martin Bryant, 28, was badly burned in a house fire that he set just before police arrested him. Now, under heavy police guard, he is being treated for burns in the same hospital that is caring for survivors of Australia's worst massacre in modern times.

Hospital officials say people have called to complain that Bryant should not receive medical treatment. In an act of protest, 20 nurses at the Royal Hobart Hospital called in sick Wednesday, hospital chief executive Lindsay Pyne said.

Officials said morale was starting to recover, however, after the hospital received hundreds of messages empathizing with the staff's long hours and unenviable task.

Doctors say Bryant, who was charged with murder at a bedside hearing, might require plastic surgery and could remain hospitalized for another week.

Of the 18 wounded, 11 remain hospitalized, said Dr. Stephen Wilkinson, the hospital's director of surgery. The victims were shot at close range, and some have lost limbs. Two remain in serious condition.

Bullet fragments have been ``found in just about any body part you would care to name,'' he said.

The tearful state service for the dead Wednesday started with a minute's silence observed throughout Australia, which includes the island of Tasmania, 300 miles southeast of Melbourne.

At 10:30 a.m., streetcars stopped running, financial exchanges suspended trading and schools interrupted classes.

Inside the Anglican cathedral, 800 friends, relatives and neighbors of the victims sat with the nation's leaders at the service, nationally broadcast live on television. Some wept openly.

``The suddenness of the assault, the scope of the massacre, the senselessness of the carnage, have left us in deep shock and even anger,'' Tasmania's Anglican Bishop Phillip Newell said.

Before the service, Prime Minister John Howard, who has promised to tighten gun controls, visited the death scene, 30 miles south of Hobart.

``This is an event that has shaken the core of this country in a way that no individual crime has done in my lifetime,'' Howard said.

Bryant is accused of using high-powered assault weapons and shooting sightseers and staff Sunday at the picturesque Port Arthur colonial prison complex. Authorities said he then barricaded himself inside a guest cottage with three hostages and set fire to the house Monday morning.

Police say they captured Bryant when he fled the cottage after his clothes caught on fire. The charred bodies of the hostages were found in the building's ashes.

At the prison complex, yellow-painted outlines of bodies cover the road and pathways where victims fell. The site was to reopen Saturday so relatives and friends can see where their loved ones died.

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