A search for around 60 people feared drowned in Bangladesh's latest ferry accident went into full swing today along with efforts to locate and retrieve the sunken vessel, officials said.
The ferry capsized during a storm on Thursday night in the Baleswar river, only three weeks after a similar accident killed nearly 500 people.
The double-decker steel ferry was heading from Charduani in the coastal district of Pirojepur to the southern industrial district of Khulna when it sank, around 340 km (210 miles) from the capital, Dhaka.
Villagers and fishermen found five bodies from the ferry, including one of its crew members yesterday, police said. Police and officials said the ferry was carrying about 100 people and nearly 40 managed to swim to shore or were picked up by fishing boats.
Police said they believed most of the missing were swept downstream in strong currents or were trapped inside the Suraha. Bad weather hampered rescue efforts yesterday, they said.
Bangladesh has thousands of kilometres of waterways, and ferries are an essential part of the country's transport system.
But Bangladesh also has one of the world's worst accident records blamed on a combination of lax regulations, frequent overloading and poor safety checks, according to shipping experts.
In 1986, Bangladesh's worst ferry disaster killed around 600 people and nearly 500 died in another accident on May 3 this year - both on the Meghna river.