While government estimates had earlier put the death toll at 242, the United News of Bangladesh -- which has reporters deployed across the devastated region -- said they had made their own count in each affected district taking the toll to 1,100.

The government has acknowledged its trouble keeping count. The official disaster control room in Dhaka, the capital, is struggling to collect information with power and phone lines down in most remote areas.

Dalil Uddin, an official with the Ministry of Disaster Management, said Friday evening that the official toll would go much higher than 242 but they were unable to get updates from the affected districts.

The cyclone leveled thousands of flimsy huts, uprooted trees, electricity and telephone poles, and destroyed crops and fish farms in 15 coastal districts, local government officials and witnesses said.

Relief workers struggled to ferry food and medicine Friday to hundreds of thousands of survivors of the cyclone, officials and aid workers said.

Hasanul Amin, assistant director of the cyclone preparedness program sponsored by the government and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, said that about a dozen teams have been deployed to conduct relief operations in the worst-hit areas in the country's southwest, but added that relief work was hampered because power and phone were down in many areas.

Aid workers struggled through washed-out roads and areas blocked by debris to deliver relief material to people stranded by the floodwaters. In Sharankhola village in Bagerhat district -- one of the hardest hit areas -- some villagers waited for hours to get some dry biscuits and rice, said a reported from the United News of Bangladesh news agency.

Bagerhat is 136 kilometers (85 miles) south of Dhaka and very close to the Bay of Bengal.

"We have lost everything," local farmer Moshararf Hossain told a UNB reporter. "We have nowhere to go."

Another farmer, Alam, said he lost two brothers to the cyclone.

"Nothing can compensate for my loss, but still I need support from the government," Alam told a reporter with UNB.

Tropical Cyclone Sidr roared across the country's southwestern coast late Thursday with driving rain, high waves and wind speeds of 240 kph (150 mph).

Downpours and staggering winds also spawned a water surge 1.2 meters (four feet) high that swept through low-lying areas and some offshore islands, leaving them under water, said Nahid Sultana, an official of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.

The government's relief agency was trying to determine the extent of the devastation and the need for relief, she said.

Volunteers from international aid agencies including the U.N. World Food Program, Save the Children and the U.S.-based Christian aid group World Vision have joined the relief effort.

The WFP has begun distributing high-energy biscuits in devastated villages and in shelters, the agency said in a statement. Save the Children said their volunteers were helping to evacuate people across the battered region.

World Vision is putting together seven-day packages for families that will include rice, oil, sugar, salt, candles and blankets, according to Vince Edwards, the agency's Bangladesh director.

But Edwards said debris from the storm has blocked roads and rivers, making it difficult to reach all the areas that had been hit.

"There has been lot of damage to houses made of mud and bamboo and about 60 to 80 percent of the trees have been uprooted," Edwards said.

Power and communications in the capital, Dhaka, also remained down late Friday. Strong winds uprooted trees, snapped power and telecommunication lines and sent billboards flying through the air, injuring several people, said Ashraful Zaman, another official at the cyclone control room.

At least 650,000 coastal villagers moved Thursday to cyclone shelters where they were given emergency rations, Ali Imam Majumder, a senior government official, told reporters in Dhaka.

However by late evening Friday operations had resumed at the country's two main seaports -- Chittagong and Mongla, as well Chittagong and Dhaka airports, authorities said.

The storm spared India's eastern coast, where the weather was calm. India's Meteorological Department had forecast heavy rain and flooding in West Bengal and Orissa states.

Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation, is prone to seasonal cyclones and floods that cause huge losses of life and property. The coastal area borders eastern India and is famous for the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, a world heritage site that is home to rare Royal Bengal Tigers.

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Associated Press writers Parveen Ahmed in Dhaka, Sheikh Didarul Alam in Khulna and Akhter Faruk in Barisal contributed to this report.