Reports say the Burmese military stormed several monasteries Wednesday night and seized hundreds of Buddhist monks, as authorities cracked down on massive pro-democracy demonstrations across the country.

About 100 monks were taken from a monastery located east of the former capital Rangoon, the largest city in the country.

Earlier Wednesday, Burma's state radio confirmed at least one person was killed and three others wounded after security forces cracked down on anti-government protests on Wednesday.

The government's military junta said security forces fired into a crowd of thousands as they demonstrated near the Sule Pagoda in the centre of Rangoon.

State radio says a 30-year-old man died after being hit by a ricocheting bullet, while three other people were injured in the ensuing chaos.

The radio and television announcement is the first official verification from the military government that force was used and blood was spilled in order to suppress the demonstrators.

Unconfirmed reports from exiled dissidents and journalists say the death toll is much higher as military forces attempt to quash the largest protest the country has seen in two decades.

Information minister, Zin Linn, for the Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which is Burma's self-proclaimed government-in-exile, said at least five Buddhist monks were killed by military forces.

Nearly 300 bloodied monks and activists were hauled away in trucks across Yangon as thousands of protesters defied a ban on public assembly.

Reporters say a number of monks -- many of them revered in the predominantly Buddhist country -- have been dragged into waiting vehicles.

"There have been lots of clashes in different places between the demonstrators and the riot police and the troops,'' Democratic Voice of Burma radio editor, Aye Chan Naing, citing reports from his reporters in Yangon, told The Associated Press.

"The troops opened fire into the crowd, and they also used tear gas and some Buddhist monks have been beaten up,'' he said.

Armed riot police clashed with about 10,000 activists, beating monks, firing warning shots, shooting off tear gas and dragging others away into trucks.

The crowd was made up of mostly young protesters along with members of the party the National League for Democracy.

The party is headed by leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, who has been under detention for more than 11 of the last 18 years.

The party won a 1990 general election but was not allowed to take power by the military.

Authorities announced the 60-day ban on gatherings of more than five people and enacted a curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. in Yangon and Mandalay on Tuesday.

When faced with a similar uprising in 1988, the military government quashed a student-led democracy movement, killing thousands of peaceful demonstrators and traumatizing the nation.

Protesters began to organize on Aug. 19 after the government raised oil prices in the predominantly poor nation.

International pressure

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told French media that the U.N. Security Council will hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the escalating crisis in Burma.

The closed session will be briefed by Ibrahim Gambari, the secretary-general's special envoy on Burma, a UN deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe told The Associated Press.

On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the military government to deal with protesters in a non-violent manner.

"The whole world is now watching Burma and its illegitimate and repressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account," Brown said.

"The age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over."

On Tuesday, U.S. President George Bush announced new sanctions against the military government, accusing it of "a 19-year reign of fear'' that denies basic freedoms.

"Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma,'' the president said Tuesday in an address to the UN General Assembly in New York.

The international outcry could put pressure on China, Burma's top economic and diplomatic supporter, which is sensitive about its international image before next year's summer Olympics in Beijing.

With files from The Associated Press