Several Thousand Dead In Bangladesh Cyclone

"The death figure will [continue to] go up," said Ayub Miah, a disaster ministry official. "At this moment we can't say exactly how many people still remained missing or the total extent of damage."

Tanvir Haider Siddiqui, police chief in the hard-hit Borguna coastal district, said that "many roads remained blocked with uprooted trees. We don't know when the ferry service will be restored."

Many sources have put the death toll over 2000 some saying over 10,000. According to the Independent, "The official death toll from Bangladesh's worst cyclone for a decade had reached 2,579 last night but aid workers believe it will be much higher once details are in from the country's remote islands and isolated areas. Mohammad Abdur Rob, chairman of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, said it estimated that 10,000 had died after assessing information provided by thousands of volunteer rescuers."

"Our estimate is that 900,000 families are affected,'' said Red Cross official Shafiquzzaman Rabbani - a figure that accounts for around seven million people.

In the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone at least 138,000 people were killed and as many as 10 million were homeless.