Rescuers 'overwhelmed' at Bangladesh ferry disaster

Bangladeshis await news of loved ones

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Rescue workers in Bangladesh have found over 200 bodies after refloating a ferry that sunk in the south the country last week.

Work crews said Monday they were overwhelmed by the number of bodies they were finding in the aftermath of the disaster, which could be one of the nation's worst boating tragedies since the 1980s.

One rescuer told The Associated Press that many decomposing bodies surfaced in the choppy Meghna River after the ferry was lifted from underwater late Sunday and towed to shore.

While government officials said over the weekend the toll from the sinking was closer to 150, police suspect as many as 300 people may have drowned when the ferry capsized in a storm on Friday, 170 km (100 miles) south of Dhaka.

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Around 100 survivors swum to shore or were picked up by boats shortly after the ferry sunk, but officials suspect that many more may have been swept away in the river's strong currents.

Officials admit working out just how many people died is difficult as ferry crews often flout safety rules or don't keep a complete list of passengers, with many buying tickets after they board.

Survivors from the three-deck M.V. Salahuddin-2 have said the ferry was badly overloaded with as many as 400 people on board.

Bad weather

Fresh rainstorms sweeping much of the country on Monday hampered efforts to return bodies to relatives or bury them.

A television reporter at the scene near Shatnal, a rural area, told Reuters news agency a large number of bodies lay scattered on the river's shore. "This is an awful scene," he said by telephone.

Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury cancelled a visit on Monday to the site of the disaster after bad weather prevented his helicopter from taking off, his office said.

Authorities have launched an investigation to work out why the ferry sank.

A delta nation of 130 million people crisscrossed by many rivers, Bangladesh is often swamped by bad weather.

Tropical storms with high winds plague the impoverished country every summer, making journeys by river much more perilous.

Over the past few days storms have swept large areas of Bangladesh damaging hundreds of houses as well as rice fields, and killing scores of people. Experts say the bad weather is unlikely to subside for some time yet.

Some 150 people have been killed in the past month alone as a result of the storms.

Bangladesh has suffered a string of ferry disasters, among them one vessel that sank in May 1999 with the loss of between 100 and 300 lives.