Rescuers have retrieved 116 bodies but more than 80 people are still missing and feared drowned after a Bangladesh ferry capsized in a storm on a river near the capital, Dhaka, police and officials said on Monday.

Two salvage ships refloated the upturned vessel and towed it on Monday closer to the river's bank, allowing divers to make a last sweep for victims.

Five more bodies were found in the ferry which was pulled out of the water 36 hours after it went down in the river Buriganga late on Saturday.

"We are sweeping...the ferry, searching for more bodies if any," Saiful Haque Khan, a director of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, told Reuters at the scene.

Earlier, fire service and navy divers pulled out nearly 30 bodies after efforts to salvage the sunken ferry resumed.

The M.V. Maharaj, which officials said was believed to have been carrying some 200 people, had been sailing to the southern town of Chandpur from Dhaka when it was caught in a tropical storm on the Buriganga river late on Saturday.

Fire service officer A.B.M. Nurul Huq said some of the bodies could have been washed away by strong currents in the river.

Only a handful of people appeared to have survived. Officials said about 20, while police reported "only a few."

However, the search for those missing is not over yet.

"We have asked local administration and various agencies to keep looking for missing," a senior official supervising the rescue operation said on Monday.

"Previously, bodies were found in the river downstream several days or even weeks after an accident," he said. "But chances of finding anyone more alive is really remote."

Chandpur authorities have handed nearly 60 corpses to relatives and are waiting for others to be identified, officials said.

The exact number of casualties or people on board the ferry was unlikely to be determined because most Bangladeshi ferry companies do not keep passenger lists and often take on loads beyond their capacity.

Hundreds of wailing and grieving people thronged the Buriganga banks, hoping to find missing relatives or to take home bodies already identified.

Officials said they could not confirm the report of a collision but were investigating.

Bangladesh Shipping Minister Akbar Hossain visited the spot and pledged a quick investigation and to punish those responsible. Bangladesh lacks salvage and safety equipment, and ferry disasters claim hundreds of lives each year.

PHOTO CAPTION

A crane pulls the sunken ferry from the river Buriganga near the capital Dhaka on Sunday February 20, 2005. (Reuters)