A ferry carrying about 500 passengers has sunk in a storm in southern Bangladesh overnight and officials fear hundreds may have died or been swept away by strong river currents.
Some survivors claimed today the ferry was overloaded and said strong winds caused it to list to one side and sink.
Divers found the bodies of a woman and a child and pulled nearly 100 survivors from the turbulent Meghna River, keeping their fingers crossed for further rescues.
Reporters at the scene saw scores of wailing men and women crowding the river's banks looking for relatives among the survivors or seeking news about the missing.
"It (the ferry) was packed beyond its carrying capacity," said survivor Mr Mohammad Altaf. "It was dark and we were sitting on the ferry's congested upper deck. It was drizzling, then came the strong winds and the ferry listed to one side," he told reporters.
"Within moments I was thrown overboard into the water and I saw the ferry going down as well," he said.
The triple-decked M.V. Salahuddin-2, which sank at around midnight on Friday, was on its way to Patuakhali from Dhaka, officials said.
It went down near Shatnal, a rural area 170 km (100 miles) south of the capital, where the Meghna meets its tributaries and often floods its banks.
Officials maintained the death toll could reach the hundreds once the ferry was lifted from the river bottom, which is not expected until Sunday, and which would make it one of the worst river tragedies Bangladesh has known.
More than 200 people were killed when a ferry sank near Chandpur in 1994.
Prime Minister Mr Begum Khaleda Zia expressed deep shock over the ferry disaster and ordered a massive rescue effort, the state-run Bangladesh Television (BTV) reported.
The government had formed a three-member committee headed by a senior official of the shipping ministry to investigate the ferry's sinking and ascertain its causes, it said.
BTV reported the ferry was carrying about 400 people, of whom nearly 100 had been rescued and some had made it themselves to the shore.