Among the missing were the crew of a fishing trawler, believed to number between 12 and 15, and 120 people on board a ferry from the nearby Comoro Islands, which "almost certainly sank" off the coast of northwest Madagascar at the weekend when the region was battered by the storm, a Comoran government official said.

The government on Thursday called for local polls due at the weekend to be delayed and decreed three days of national mourning following the probable sinking of the Samson ferry.

"We will decree three days of national mourning starting today," Transport Minister and Government Spokesman Ali Msaidie told reporters.

"It looks almost certain that the Samson sank," he said in his Moroni office, adding that he had spoken with a survivor of the accident who said she saw the boat go down.

"This is a real tragedy. There are two survivors out of 120 on board," the minister said.

Officials in the central highland capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo, said at least 11 fishermen were missing and feared drowned after their shrimp trawler sank near Mahajanga in northwest Madagascar as Gafilo lashed the region at the weekend.

"An industrial fishing boat belonging to the Somapeche company and measuring 25 meters (yards) was found overturned in the mouth of the Betsiboka River," Bertrand Couteaux, the secretary of a professional body representing Madagascar's shrimp fisheries, told AFP.

He said the boat had a crew of 15, of whom only one fisherman had survived.

Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Edmond Randriarimanana confirmed that the boat had gone down but said it had a crew of 13 and two had been rescued.

Staff at Somapeche told AFP the trawler had sunk during the storm, but were unable to give a toll for the accident or the number of fishermen on board.

The Samson ferry's manifest showed that 70 of its passengers were Comorans, 25 Madagascans, and two French. Eight of the passengers were children, five from the Comoros and three from Madagascar, said the ship's owner, Nadir Joulette Aly.

The Samson also had a crew of 11 Comorans and 10 Madagascans, he said.

In Madagascar on Wednesday a Comoran national claiming to be a survivor of the tragedy gave evidence at a police station in the northwestern town of Mahajanga. He told officers a woman had survived with him, according to local police sources.

The UN Children's Fund said in a statement issued in Paris that a plane carrying 36 tonnes of emergency aid was due to land in Madagascar on Thursday.

"Nearly 10,000 children under age five and 2,500 pregnant women have been affected and are in an extremely vulnerable situation," the statement said.

"In emergency situations such as those following cyclones, children are exposed to numerous risks including diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition," it said.

Northern Madagascar was ravaged by Gafilo at the weekend, its winds gusting at up to 180 kilometers per hour (110 mph).

The cyclone caused 32 deaths and left 42 people unaccounted for, 11 injured and 6,088 homeless in the north of the island, the Madagascan rescue services said.

The town of Antalaha in the northeast was almost entirely destroyed, and many residents there were injured when their houses collapsed.

Rice paddies on the outskirts of Antalaha were destroyed as was much of the vanilla crop. Northeast Madagascar, where Gafilo first made landfall at the weekend, is known as the island's vanilla triangle, with much of the world's supply of the aromatic pod being grown and processed here.

The storm lay stationary in the Mozambique Channel on Monday and Tuesday before swirling around and crossing southern Madagascar, its winds significantly weaker, where it inflicted little damage before heading out to sea early Thursday.

TERRA.WIRE