The recovery brought the death toll from flooding in the eastern town of Dire Dawa and outlying areas to at least 221, but frantic rescue efforts were continuing even as hopes faded for some 300 people still unaccounted for.

Officials said search teams had managed to retrieve 13 more bodies Wednesday after 11 were recovered the previous day.

"The death toll has now reached 224 with the recovering of another three bodies late afternoon," a police official told AFP from Dire Dawa, which was the worst hit by the floods, adding that the search continues.

The officials, however, said it was difficult to identify the bodies as they had began decomposing, causing a pile-up in the hospital.

"The bodies recovered yesterday and on Monday were mangled and already decomposing. It is quite difficult to identify them and this makes it difficult for the medical team and the waiting families," Red Cross programme coordinator Gebregiorgis Gebremicheal told AFP.

Earlier, Police Inspector Beniam Fikru said the toll was expected to rise because the figure accounted only for deaths confirmed by the authorities. Many victims had been buried quickly by relatives rather than brought to hospitals.

"This death toll is only of those who are confirmed by the hospital and the police. It does not include those who are buried by family members that were not brought to hospital," he said.

More than 300 soldiers have been dispatched to Dire Dawa, about 500 kilometres (300 miles) east of the capital Addis Ababa, to help clear debris and reinforce the rescue and search teams.

The search operation had been extended to 40 kilometers downstream, where officials said more bodies might have been washed or buried under the sand.

"The search for more bodies is going on today, as far as 30-40 kilometres downstream and in suspect areas of the river bed," Beniam said.

Exhausted security forces and aid workers continued to dig through mud, sand and debris with heavy equipment, garden tools and even their bare hands in the search for bodies.

Some 10,000 people are believed to have been left homeless after the two rivers broke their banks during heavy rains and swept through the town in the flood-prone Ethiopian lowlands.

The government and humanitarian teams were struggling to deliver supplies to the displaced, who are camped in schools and other public buildings in the township.

Witnesses said crowds of people crammed into makeshift mortuaries and overwhelmed hospitals in search for missing loved ones.

Ethiopia, an impoverished nation of about 70 million people, is frequently ravaged by natural disasters, notably drought.

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. Survivors were forced to cling to trees to escape being eaten by crocodiles.

In neighbouring Kenya, flash floods have killed at least six people and displaced hundreds in the past three days, officials said. Hundreds of livestock have also been swept away.

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