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Bangladesh: 39 drown after boats collide

  • Story Highlights
  • Police: Some 25 passengers swam to safety soon after the boat sank
  • Riverboat, carrying about 100 passengers, collided Thursday with a trawler
  • Death toll is likely to rise, say police, as bodies continue to be recovered
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From Saeed Ahmed
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(CNN) -- Eight more bodies floated to the surface Sunday, bringing the death toll to 39 from a riverboat accident in southern Bangladesh.

The riverboat, carrying about 100 passengers, collided Thursday with a trawler in the Kirtonkhola river near the city of Barisal, located about 70 miles (120 km) south of the capital city, Dhaka.

Some 25 passengers swam to safety soon after the boat sank, said police Superintendent Taufiq Mehboob Chowdhury.

"There is not much scope to do anything else," he said Sunday. "Now we're adjusting the death toll as the bodies are rising to the surface from the deep waters."

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