Fifteen people, mostly school children, are feared dead in India's northeastern state of Assam after an overcrowded wooden river boat capsized mid-stream, police said Friday.

A police official said there were about 25 people in the small boat when it capsized Thursday evening on the Buridihing river about 550 kilometres (340 miles) east of Assam's main city of Guwahati.

"So far we managed to fish out two dead bodies, while 10 others swam to safety," police spokesman A. Das told AFP. "We conducted an overnight search mission to look for 13 more people who were in the boat.

"It is unlikely that we would get any survivors now as the river current is very strong," Das said.

Most of the passengers were schoolchildren returning home to their villages from their school in a local village. Both the dead are girls and of the 13 missing, two are women and the rest are schoolchildren