Helplessness along the banks of the Meghna River in Bangladesh.

Dozens are feared dead after a ferry carrying between 50 to 100 people collided with a sand barge and sank.

NATS CRYING RELATIVES

Frantic relatives could only watch as rescue workers plucked bodies from the water.

SOUNDBITE (Bengali) MAN WHO LOST HIS WIFE, SAIFUL ISLAM, SAYING:

"My wife and son were coming with this ferry and suddenly it collided with a trawler and sank. My son could swim and survived but my wife could not."

Local officials don't think the ferry was overcrowded.

They say half the passengers managed to swim ashore but for some the human toll of the accident is incomprehensible.

SOUNDBITE (Bengali) RELATIVE WHO LOST FAMILY MEMBERS, BADAL, SAYING:

"I have nothing to say, seven died, seven members of my family all died."

Ferries in Bangladesh are largely unregulated despite vows by the government to crack down on unlicensed operators.

But the vessels often run into trouble in this low-lying network of rivers that form the Ganges Delta, in a country that sees hundreds of deaths in accidents like this each year.