Hundreds more were injured as fans invaded the pitch after a match between top-tier clubs al-Masry and al-Ahly.

Emergency meetings of the cabinet and parliament have been called.

Protest marches are being planned for Thursday against the police's inability to contain the violence.

Funerals are expected to be held after noon (10:00 GMT) prayers in Port Said.

All Egyptian premier-league matches have been postponed indefinitely.

One al-Ahly fan told the BBC that fans will march from the club headquarters in Cairo to the Interior Ministry.

"People are angry at the regime more than anything else... People are really angry, you could see the rage in their eyes," Mohammed Abdel Hamid said.

Hundreds gathered at Cairo's main railway station to receive the injured and the first bodies arriving from Port Said, with some chanting slogans against military rule.

"Everyone was beating us. They were beating us from inside and outside, with fireworks, stones, metal bars, and some had knives, I swear," one fan told a private TV station.

Army units were deployed in Port Said and joined police patrols around morgues and hospitals, but most streets had no police presence.

The army has set up checkpoints at entrances to the city.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of Egypt's ruling army council, went to an airbase near Cairo to meet al-Ahly players who were flown back from Port Said on a military aircraft.

"This will not bring Egypt down... These incidents happen anywhere in the world. We will not let those behind it go," he said, according to the Associated Press news agency.

It is the biggest disaster in the country's football history, said the Egyptian deputy health minister.

"This is unfortunate and deeply saddening," Hesham Sheiha told state television, adding that many people died in a stampede as people tried to leave the stadium.

Some of the dead were security officers, AP quoted a morgue official as saying.

bbc.com