Ugandan police revised the number of deaths linked to a Christian doomsday sect to 924 today, surpassing the 1978 Jonestown tragedy and making it one of the largest cult-related killings in history.
Investigators have yet to search a fifth cult compound believed to hold more victims.
They canceled today's search of the site, deep in a rainforest near the Ruwenzori Mountians along the Congolese border, until they have the proper equipment, said police spokesman Eric Naigambi. The death toll rose after police re-estimated those killed in the March 17 church fire that first revealed the deadly activities of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. Authorities initially reported at least 330 charred bodies inside the ruins of the makeshift church in Kanunga. Today, they said they had confirmed that at least 530 people perished in what was believed to have been a gasoline-fueled inferno inside the sealed church. Subsequent searches of three other sect compounds unearthed mass graves yielding victims apparently killed after what had been the cult's Dec. 31 deadline for the world to end.