(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-19 15:42

BARGUNA - The death toll from Bangladesh's most devastating storm in a decade climbed to at least 2,400 on Monday and relief officials warned the figure could jump sharply as rescuers reach more isolated areas.

Bangladeshi villagers unload a helicopter with relief goods at Borguna, 176 kilometers (110 miles) south of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, November 18, 2007. [Agencies]

Teams from international aid organizations worked with army troops in a massive rescue effort that drew help from around the world. Rescue workers cleared roads of fallen trees and twisted roofs to reach remote villages, but tents, rice, water and other relief items were slow to arrive. Hungry survivors, thousands of whom were left homeless, scrambled for food.

The official death toll from Tropical Cyclone Sidr reached 2,407 on Monday, according to the Disaster Management Ministry.

District officials compile the figures, which are far from precise, based on reports from police, public hospitals, military officials, relief workers and aid agencies, said Mohammad Golam Mostafa of the Disaster Management Ministry.

The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, said that it believed the toll could hit 10,000 once rescuers reach islands off the coast of the low-lying river delta nation.

Mohammad Abdur Rob, chairman of the society, said the estimate came from the assessments of thousands of volunteers taking part in the rescue operations across the battered region.

"We have seen more bodies floating in the sea," Zakir Hossain, a fisherman from the country's southwest said, after reaching shore with two decomposing bodies he and other fishermen had found.

Squatting in a muddy field with his wife, 45-year-old farmer Asad Ali said their 5-year-old daughter, the couple's only child, had been fatally crushed beneath their toppled thatched hut in Barguna, one of the hardest-hit districts.

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