Utpal Baruah / Reuters

Onlookers and rescue workers look at a ferry which was brought ashore after it sank on the Brahmaputra river in the northeastern Indian state of Assam.

An overloaded double-decked ferry carrying mostly farmers and their families capsized in the Dhubri district of the northeastern Indian state of Assam on Monday, killing at least 103 people, police said.

About 100 people were rescued from the ship carrying about 300 passengers, which sank during a storm in the Brahmaputra River, Assam police chief Jayanta Narayan Choudhury told Reuters.

Reports on the number of dead and missing varied immediately after the accident.

People were sitting on the roof of the ferry when it tipped over in a storm in a remote region of the state, close to China and Bangladesh, police said.

"Our rescue efforts have been hampered by bad weather, it is still raining heavily and there is almost zero visibility in the area," P.C. Saloi, a police officer at the scene, told Reuters. Rescue operations were called off late at night and were set to begin again at sun up.

Eyewitnesses told police the vessel was old and broke in two after capsizing in the swollen river, one of Asia's largest. Smaller boats often get into trouble on the river, but the ferry was the largest to sink in recent years.

Reuters

Map of the ferry sinking in India

"I could see people being swept away as the river current was very strong," a witness, Rahul Karmakar, told AFP.

The boat was overloaded with people and sacks of rice, among other goods, and carried no lifeboats or life jackets, the police officer told Reuters..

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who represents Assam in the upper house of parliament, said he was "shocked and grieved" by the accident.

Rescue workers said they had contacted colleagues downstream in Bangladesh to help in the search for survivors. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Did spies or 'Pakistani Blackwater' shield bin Laden?
• NBC sources: Blind Chinese activist is under US protection
• 'Slaughtered for their ivory': Up to 35,000 elephants slain in one year
• Listen up, criminals! Earprints lead cops to serial burglar
• UK to put missiles on rooftop to guard Olympics?
• Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng escapes from house arrest

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world