More than 8,000 villagers from the flattened hamlets in the district of Gaibandha spent a second night in the open after Sunday's storm ripped their homes apart, police said.

The twister accompanied by a hailstorm flattened 3,000 houses, destroyed crops, uprooted hundreds of trees and electricity poles and cut off communications to the 15 villages, located in one of the most impoverished parts of the country.

Ten people brought Monday in serious condition to Rangpur Medical Hospital died overnight and on Tuesday, police said, adding two more died in Sundarganj sub-district to bring the overall death toll to 47.

"The death figures could go up further as around 120 people still remain in hospital with serious injuries," police officer in charge of Rangpur, Nur-e-Alam, told AFP Tuesday.

"We are struggling to cope with hundreds of injured persons. More than 300 sought treatment in the 100-bed district hospital and 200 each in Sadullahpur and Sunderganj hospitals," said Gaibandha district civil surgeon Habibur Rahman.

District police chief Bhanu Lal Das said the army and Bangladeshi paramilitary border forces had joined local authorities in a huge rehabilitation programme that is being overseen by two government ministers.

The authorities planned to provide shelter to every family whose house was demolished in the tornado, Das said.

Survivors, however, complained that the relief was inadequate and the construction of temporary shelters was proceeding too slowly.

"The authorities are providing two to three kilograms (four to 6.5 pounds) of rice to every affected family, which is inadequate to feed them," said Asdauzzaman Mamum, one of the survivors.

"I am afraid hundreds of the worst hit villagers will have to pass a third night under the open sky and with half empty stomachs," he said.

Police on Monday had been forced to clear roads of hundreds of fallen trees and debris so that rescue teams could reach the worst-affected sub-district of Sadullahpur, where some 5,000 people were left homeless in three villages in which every single house was flattened, including those made of brick.

A junior government minister Monday visited the affected villages to oversee relief operations.

"We are distributing biscuits ... and giving tin sheets to the affected families to build homes," said Asadul Habib Dulu, the country's state minister for food and disaster management.

Tropical storms frequently hit Bangladesh during summer. Before Sunday's storm, at least 20 people had died in five downpours in different districts since the beginning of the month.

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