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A cylone that slammed the Bay of Bengal on India's east coast has killed 49 fishermen, officials confirmed Thursday as coast guard planes and ships scoured the choppy waters for possible survivors.

Budhadev Bhattacharya, chief minister of India's coastal state of West Bengal, said at least 111 more fishermen were still missing at sea in the cyclonic storm that hit the Bay of Bengal late Tuesday.

"So far we know that 49 fishermen have died in Tuesday's cyclone," he told AFP in Calcutta, the provincial capital.

"A total of 111 are still missing," he said.

India's coast guard scoured the waters for fishermen, who hailed from across eastern India and adjoining Bangladesh.

Dhaka launched an independent search Thursday for hundreds of its fishermen missing and feared killed in the Bay.

Dhaka said some 200 of its fishermen were still unaccounted for.

Initial estimates had more than 600 fishermen missing, but by Wednesday evening, 250 had returned to Digha, 200 kilometres (124 miles) west of here.

Officials said most survivors were sent home after being treated at a seaside medical clinic in Digha. The more seriously injured were hospitalised.

Hundreds of people from the fishing villages in Digha crowded the shores, waiting for news of their missing relatives.

Among those waiting anxiously was Savitri Mondal, whose husband Tapan had set out to sea in a rowboat before the storm.

Mondal complained authorities had compiled lists only of those fishermen who were aboard trawlers, while the names of those using ordinary vessels had not been recorded.

Late Wednesday, officials said some 12 trawlers had sunk in Bengal Bay after the storm, swirling furiously at 60 kilometres per hour, slammed the boats.

They accused the local meteorological office of sounding a cyclone warning too late, as most fishermen had already reached the deep sea when it went out.

K. K. Chakraborty, director of the regional weather office here, said however that a warning had been issued Monday, "when the depression that developed into the cyclonic storm was located about 900 kilometres southwest of Calcutta."

In Bangladesh, authorities combed the tempestuous waters for missing Bangladeshi fishermen, amid torrential rains and raging winds of 85 kilometers an hour.

The district deputy administrative officer of southeastern Cox's Bazaar, Azimuzzaman, told AFP by telephone that 60 people in four boats were confirmed missing.

"Search operations to locate them are still under way," he said.

Around 20 fishing boats sank under the weight of the storm. So far only 20 fishermen had been rescued, he said.

Media reports said thousands of people had been forced to leave their homes because of the storm, which caused heavy damage to standing crops in coastal areas of Bangladesh.

Cyclones and floods are common in the heavily populated low-lying coastal regions of eastern India and Bangladesh.

In 1991, a cyclone in Bangladesh killed at least 138,000 people and left millions homeless.

Another cyclone in India's eastern state of Orissa three years ago killed at least 10,000 people.

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