A river ferry carrying up to 300 people capsized during a storm in Bangladesh early Sunday with most of the passengers feared trapped inside, police said. The double-decker M.V. Lighting Sun was sailing to Dhaka on the Meghna river from the southern Madaripur area when it was swamped by a sudden storm near Chandpur, 106 miles east of the capital. Police said eight bodies had been found so far. Villagers and fishermen in motor boats picked up at least 35 survivors and another seven were plucked from atop the hull of the upturned ferry, which was floating partly submerged in the river. Many of the passengers were believed to be asleep when the ferry overturned at around 3:30 a.m. local time. Gusty winds and occasional blasts of rain drove off the ill-equipped rescuers, who managed to cut a part of the ferry's hull to let the survivors out. "Only seven people have crawled up and been taken to safety. But no one else showed up," said a Reuters TV cameraman on the scene. "It seems impossible for the local rescuers to turn the ferry or pull it toward the shore," he said by telephone. "It seems more people, dead or alive, are trapped inside." Police said a rescue vessel left Narayanganj, near Dhaka, for Chandpur and was expected to reach there in the afternoon. Thousands of people thronged the Meghna banks, waiting for their relatives to come back and waiting for a full-scale rescue operation to begin. Officials said 17 people had been rescued, including those who came out alive through the narrow cut-passage on the hull, and were taken to hospital. The survivors said some people swam out through the ferry's windows and might have reached safety. Some others were pulled out by rescuers. "At least 100 or more people could be missing or drowned," one survivor told reporters. Strong currents could have swept some bodies down the river. "The ferry sank in the Meghna's midstream, off the Anandabazar fishing center. The river is very turbulent with strong winds still blowing," said a reporter at the scene. He quoted a survivor as saying the "packed ferry listed on one side and sank minutes after the storm hit." "I could hear people screaming and chanting 'Allah save us' before I jumped into the water and managed to swim to a nearby char (river island)," the survivor said. Survivor Yasmin Begum, 35, swooned repeatedly as she wailed over the body of her 18-month old son. Her husband and his sister were missing, witnesses said. Ten-year-old Mohammad Rana looked helplessly for his missing grandparents. "Someone bring them back to me," said the boy, crying inconsolably. About 400 people were killed and hundreds are unaccounted for after a triple-decker ferry sank in a storm, also in Chandpur district, in July last year. Officials and police said many ferries did not keep passengers' list and often took people in excess of approved capacity, making it impossible to know the exact casualties after accidents. Impoverished and over-populated Bangladesh has a long history of tragic ferry disasters. Inland water transport authority officials say about 1,000 people die in ferry accidents in the country every year, but the number of missing is far more. Bangladesh is struggling to clean up one of the world's deadliest ferry industries ahead of the annual rainy season next month. The government has banned night sailing by small ferries and issued warnings to owners of larger vessels not to take on excess cargo and passengers. Listening to weather bulletins is also now mandatory for sailors. "We are taking extra precautions in the months of May and June -- preceding the rainy season -- when powerful storms often strike," shipping minister Akbar Hossain said in an interview Friday. "Safer berths are also being planned at vulnerable sites for sheltering ships during storms," he said. Low-lying Bangladesh is criss-crossed by thousands of kilometers of waterways that are crucial trade and travel routes for the congested country's 140 million people. Only a few major bridges provide transport across the several large rivers that bisect the country. Every wet season, the waterways become menacing torrents and the country is frequently lashed by cyclones that sweep in from the Bay of Bengal. Lax safety standards, poorly maintained vessels, corrupt officials and unscrupulous owners competing with other operators to make a profit largely contribute to the problem.