Reuters

Dhaka, Nov 16:  A super cyclone packing winds of 250 kph battered Bangladesh coasts overnight, killing at least 66 people, local officials said on Friday.

They said hundreds of people were injured and scores were missing, they said, but Cyclone Sidr was now losing strength and rain had mostly stopped.

"The casualty figures will rise," said an official in Barisal, one of the worst hit districts.

The Home Ministry in Dhaka put the confirmed death toll at 52 but said several districts could still not be contacted as telephones and communications were cut.

"The cyclone has caused a havoc in all coastal districts," one official said.

Cyclones frequently cause immense devastation in disaster-prone Bangladesh, a low-lying country of more than 140 million people.

The latest triggered 5-metre high water surges in many of the affected districts, washing away hundreds of thatched homes, destroying crops and killed livestock.

Hundreds of fishing boats caught in the cyclone failed to return to shore, while trees and power poles were uprooted, disrupting communication and electricity supplies.

"We have been virtually blacked out all over the country," said a disaster management official in southern Mongla, another of the worst affected areas.

Officials said seas were still choppy and unsafe for sailing, however.

Television news reports said more than 100 fishing boats in the Bay of Bengal had failed to return to shore despite repeated storm warnings given over the radio. Many boats, however, may have been small vessels without such equipment.

Moulvi Feroze Ahmed, a local council chairman on Saint Martin's island -- Bangladesh's only coral island and a major tourist attraction -- believed the worst had passed.

"Nearly 70 tourists and the island's 6,000 residents are all safe," he told Reuters by telephone.

But five people died in the mainland town of Barisal, including four from one family, after buildings collapsed. Four others died in Bhola, two in Satkhira, seven in Khulna, three in Mathbaria and four in Madaripur, local officials and reporters said.

Sixteen fishermen went missing after their vessels sank off Cox's Bazar, a resort town some 400 km southeast of Dhaka, a local fishing association said late on Thursday.

Storms batter the poor south Asian country every year. A severe cyclone killed more than half a million people in 1970, while one in 1991 killed 143,000 people.