A strike causing large numbers of civilian casualties could undermine support in some NATO nations for a campaign to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi that has proved much longer, bloodier and more costly than its backers had expected.

A spokesman for Gaddafi's government, who took foreign reporters to the scene of the strike, said 85 people had been killed when missiles struck farm compounds in the village of Majar, about 150 km (90 miles) east of Tripoli.

He said the dead were 33 children, 32 women and 20 men.

Standing on a pile of rubble, Moussa Ibrahim told reporters: "This is a crime beyond imagination. Everything about this place is civilian."

There was no evidence of weaponry at the farmhouses but neither was there immediately visible blood or body parts.

Government officials provided footage that appeared to show men combing through the rubble at one of the bomb sites at night retrieving human remains, including the bodies of two children.