Rescuers struggled to reach hundreds of thousands of survivors trapped in isolated towns along Bangladesh's ravaged coast on Saturday, as the official death toll from Tropical Cyclone Sidr passed 1,700.  

A boy hurt in the cyclone awaits treatment in Patuakhali district, 152 kilometres south of Bangladesh's capital on Saturday.
(Pavel Rahman/Associated Press)

The Category 4 storm tore apart villages and power lines late Thursday and forced more than a million coastal villagers to move to government shelters. 

The government's toll of 1,723 deaths made it the deadliest storm to hit the country in a decade. But United News of Bangladesh news agency on Saturday put the death toll at 1,795 after compiling figures sent by its correspondents based in the affected areas.

The latest official death figure included 474 people reported killed in the worst-hit district and 385 in neighbouring Pataskala, a military spokesman, Lt.-Col. Moyeenullah Chowdhury, told reporters in the capital, Dhaka.

But authorities said Saturday they feared the number of dead could soar as rescue crews reach the areas and the extent of the damage is revealed.

"We are expecting that thousands of dead bodies may be found within a few days," Agence France-Presse quoted Shekhar Chandra Das, deputy head of the government's disaster management office, as saying.

The government scrambled to join international agencies and local officials in the rescue mission, deploying military helicopters, thousands of troops and naval ships.

Rescuers trying to get food and water to people stranded by flooding tried to clear roads that were so bad they said they would have to use bicycles. Earlier in the day, some employed the brute force of elephants to help in their efforts.

"We will try again tomorrow on bicycles, and hire local country boats," M. Shakil Anwar of CARE Bangladesh said by telephone from the city of Khulna.

He added that they planned to distribute dry foods and other emergency rations among 500 families of the area.

The roads were strewn with fallen trees and covered in muddy sludge, Anwar said. Small ferries, which are the only means of transport across the numerous river channels that criss-cross the area, were flung ashore by the force of cyclone winds.

3,000 troops deployed in relief effort: report

The state-run Bangladesh Television showed hundreds of people scrambling beneath a helicopter as it dropped food packages through an open hatch. Others scurried on the ground to collect spilled goods.

The report said at least 3,000 troops were deployed to help in the relief and rescue operations.

The damage to livelihood, housing and crops will be "extremely severe," John Holmes, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, said Friday, adding that the world body was making millions of dollars in aid available to Bangladesh.

Several international humanitarian organizations, like UNICEF and CARE, were working alongside government and local volunteer agencies to provide safe drinking water and emergency supplies in the affected areas.

The 240 km/h winds wreaked havoc on the country's electricity and telephone lines, affecting even areas that were spared a direct hit, and leaving the full picture of the death and destruction unclear.

Holmes said his UN agency believed that more than 20,000 houses were damaged in the hardest-hit districts. About 150 fishing trawlers were unaccounted for, he said.

Many parts of Dhaka, the biggest city in this poor, desperately crowded nation of 150 million people, remained without power or water Saturday.

Sidr spawned a 1.2-metre-high storm surge that swept through low-lying areas and some offshore islands, leaving them under water, said Nahid Sultana, an official of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.

With files from the Associated Press