DHAKA (Reuters) - Grieving relatives and rescuers picked through the rubble left in the wake of a super cyclone that battered Bangladesh as the death toll neared 1,800 on Sunday.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Grieving survivors and rescuers picked through the rubble left in the wake of a super cyclone that battered Bangladesh as the death toll neared 1,900 on Sunday and a government official declared the disaster "a national calamity."

There were no early reports of damage or injuries from Sunday's quake, which was centered in the Pacific about 40 miles north-northwest of Antofagasta, Chile, near the mineral-rich country's northern border with Peru.

Military ships and helicopters were trying to reach thousands of people believed stranded on islands in the Bay of Bengal and in coastal areas still cut off by the devastating storm.

Officials expected the death toll to rise further as the search for hundreds of people missing after Thursday night's storm intensified.

LONDON (Reuters) - An ancient flood some say could be the origin of the story of Noah's Ark may have helped the spread of agriculture in Europe 8,300 years ago by scattering the continent's earliest farmers, researchers said on Sunday.

Using radiocarbon dating and archaeological evidence, a British team showed the collapse of the North American ice sheet, which raised global sea levels by as much as 1.4 meters, displaced tens of thousands of people in southeastern Europe who carried farming skills to their new homes.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Grieving survivors and rescuers picked through the rubble left in the wake of a cyclone that battered Bangladesh as the death toll reached over 2,300 on Sunday and a government official declared the disaster "a national calamity."