At least 29 bodies have been recovered and 50 people rescued after a passenger boat capsized on the Niger River in Niger State, central Nigeria, a local official said Thursday. 

Abdullahi Baba-Arah, head of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, told Xinhua by telephone that the accident occurred Tuesday when a wooden boat carrying passengers on a condolence visit struck a tree stump and overturned in the Gausawa community of Borgu local government area. 

"We have been unable to conclude the rescue operation because we noticed that the number of passengers on the manifest outnumbers the current figure of victims that we have," Baba-Arah said. 

He clarified that "the overloaded boat had about 90 passengers," but dismissed earlier media reports claiming that more than 60 bodies had been recovered. 

Local divers and volunteers have been deployed to the Niger River, one of West Africa's principal waterways, to search for more missing victims. An investigation will follow the rescue operation, Baba-Arah added.