With the death toll from flooding in and around Dire Dawa hovering at 206, they said frantic rescue efforts continued but conceded chances were slim of locating alive any of the more than 300 people still unaccounted for.

"We are expecting the death toll to increase," Berekat Simon, a senior aide to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, told AFP in the capital.

"The army and police are out in force searching for bodies all along the river beds," said Kassim Ahmed, a resident of Dire Dawa, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Addis Ababa.

Security forces and aid workers were digging through mud, sand and debris with heavy equipment, smaller garden tools and their hands in a desperate bid to find more survivors. At least 96 people were rescued on Sunday and Monday.

"The search is on in full-swing downstream," Ahmed told AFP by phone, adding, however, that relatives of many of the missing had lost faith their family members could be saved.

Crowds of people crammed make-shift mortuaries and overwhelmed hospitals in search of the missing while others carried on with the gruesome and emotional task of identifying the dead and burying them, Ahmed said.

Ethiopian Red Cross official Kassahun Debelie told AFP from Dire Dawa that many families held out hopes that the bodies of their missing relatives could at least be recovered for burial.

"Some are still hoping there could be a chance of recovering more bodies," he said. "The army, police and public at-large are looking, using handtools and bulldozers where possible."

"We are trying to comfort the families and we don't want to dash their hopes," Kassahun said. "We are trying to be as helpful as we can."

On Monday, officials said the death toll from the flooding overnight Saturday had risen from 191 to 206, including at least 39 children, many of whom died in their sleep.

Some 10,000 people are estimated to have been left homeless by the raging waters from two rivers, the Dechatu and Dire Dawa rivers, which broke their banks after heavy rains, and swept through the town and adjacent areas.

As local aid workers distributed food and water to grieving survivors, officials said federal authorities would step up their relief operations.

"We are organising all necessary items to be sent," said Simon Mechale of Ethiopia's Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Office. "What we sent already is being distributed to people in need and we are trying to build shelters."

Berekat said the response to a nationwide appeal for aid had been positive and that the government would make good on Meles' pledge Monday that flood prevention efforts would be boosted in Dire Dawa.

"The government has increased its pace on building dykes and walls along the river banks," he said. "The exercise had started, but it was slow. Now we have to increase the pace to ensure such a disaster doesn't happen again."

Ethiopia, a nation of about 70 million people, has frequently been ravaged by natural calamities, notably drought and famine.

In the past few years, flooding has affected large areas of eastern and southern Ethiopia, displacing tens of thousands of people and causing damage running into millions of dollars, particularly to agriculture.

Last year, at least 200 people were killed and more than 260,000 displaced when heavy rains pounded the region, flooding rivers that quickly attracted large numbers of crocodiles, forcing survivors to cling to trees to escape being eaten.

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