Bangladesh ferry accident toll rises to 33: police

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DHAKA: Police in Bangladesh raised the death toll from a ferry accident in the east of the country to 32 on Friday, with more bodies expected to be recovered after rescue workers raised the sunken vessel.

Passengers were asleep on the boat when it collided on Thursday with the wreck of a cargo ship that had sunk a few days earlier in the river Meghna at Sarail, 90 kilometres (55 miles) from Dhaka.

"This morning, we recovered five more bodies, taking the death toll to 32," local police officer Chandan Kumar told AFP by phone from the site of the accident.

A salvage vessel had succeeded in raising the ferry from the riverbed and emergency workers were now looking for more bodies, he said.

The search operation was suspended late Thursday due to poor visibility, but teams of divers from Dhaka were scouring the river again Friday.

At least 60 people on the overloaded double-decker ferry swam to shore, police said.

Local media said about 200 people were on board the ferry, called the MV Bipasha, which was travelling from Bhairab, a small remote district in the county's east, to Sachna in Sunamganj district.

Boats are the main form of inter-district travel in Bangladesh's remote, rural areas, but accidents are common due to lax safety standards and overloading.

Some 37 people drowned in December last year when a passenger ferry hit a cargo ship and sank.

At least 85 people drowned in November when an overloaded triple-decker ferry capsized off Bhola Island in the country's south.

A week later another boat sank leaving 46 people dead.

So far this year, dozens of people have been killed in several smaller boat accidents in Bangladesh.

Naval officials have said more than 95 percent of Bangladesh's hundreds of thousands of small- and medium-sized boats do not meet minimum safety regulations. (AFP)