Bangladeshi President Mohammad Zillur Rahman died Wednesday at a Singapore hospital, where he was being treated for a lung infection, an official with his office said. He was 84.

Rahman was admitted to Mount Elisabeth Hospital on March 10. He died there Wednesday afternoon, according to the official, Mohammad Shafiul Alam.

A fire swept through a shantytown in Bangladesh's capital on Sunday, killing at least 11 people, police and officials said. All the dead were children and women.

Authorities said the blaze burned some 700 closely packed thatched houses to the ground in the Hazaribagh area of Dhaka, rendering several thousand poor people homeless.

At least 27 people died Thursday when a ferry carrying about 100 people sank in a Bangladeshi river after striking a sunken cargo boat, police and officials said.

The incident occurred in Bangladesh's southeast Brahmanbaria district, in the Meghna River.

Divers have recovered 27 bodies, including 15 women, but "dozens of people are still missing" in the river, the district's administrative chief, Mohammed Abdul Mannan, told CNN.