As many as 128 people are feared drowned in Russia's worst river accident in three decades.
Today Russia said there is little hope of finding any more people alive after an overloaded tourist boat sank in the Volga River.
Divers searching the wreck of a Russian boat that sank in the Volga have confirmed the death toll as 55, with dozens more missing.
Russia's Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said the vessel was overloaded at the time of the sinking, with 208 people on board.
80 people were rescued from the water after the sinking of the 56-year-old ship.
Investigators said that the ageing craft had engine trouble even before setting out on the cruise.
'Even before it left (its home port) Kazan, the boat had a problem with the main left engine, but went out to the cruise nevertheless,' transport investigators for the Volga region said on the official website.
Yesterday's accident happened 3km from the shore near Syukeyevo village in Tatarstan, some 800km east of Moscow.
A few dozen divers working with underwater searchlights are examining the Bulgaria, which survivors said listed to its side and sank in a matter of minutes in a storm yesterday.
Most of the survivors managed to climb aboard a passing boat.
Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said hope that anyone else could have survived faded fast.
'According to the divers, the chances of finding anyone alive are minimal,' she said.
As many as 60 of the passengers may have been children, Russian media reported.
Survivors said some 30 children had gathered in a room near the stern of the ship to play just minutes before it sank.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered investigators to determine the cause of the disaster and find out who was to blame.
Mr Medvedev said that Russia would hold a day of mourning tomorrow and said that the disaster would not have happened if safety procedures had been properly observed.
Russian media reports focused on the age of the boat, built in 1955 in Czechoslovakia.
Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation on suspicion of violating rules on the use of watercraft, which could cover anything from poor navigation to failure to maintain the boat in a safe condition.
