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CALCUTTA, India, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Nearly 300 Indian and Bangladeshi fishermen were missing on Thursday, two days after a cyclone slammed into the south Asian neighbours killing at least five people, officials said.

"We have 47 confirmed missing fishermen after their boats capsized. There are at least 20 trawlers still not accounted for and 200 fishermen untraced," Kiranmoy Nanda, Fisheries Minister of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, told Reuters.

"But we feel several of these trawlers have taken shelter in other parts of the coast and will soon make contact," he said.

The cyclone killed two people in India and at least three in Bangladesh.

The storm first hit the coast of West Bengal, packing winds of 60-70 km (40-45 miles) an hour, but it weakened as it churned towards Bangladesh.

As well as three people confirmed dead in Bangladesh, 38 fishermen were missing and feared drowned, Bangladeshi officials said.

An Indian Coast Guard hovercraft and a ship were expected to join the search for fishermen in the Bay of Bengal.

Heavily populated, low-lying coastal areas of eastern India and Bangladesh are vulnerable to storms that roar in off the Bay of Bengal.

Bangladesh's worst cyclone was in 1991 when at least 138,000 people were killed.

In 1999, at least 10,000 people were killed in the Indian state of Orissa when a cyclone hit its coast. 

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