Rescuers Sunday brought ashore 469 migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh after their wooden boat arrived off Aceh in northwest Indonesia, an official said.

"We received a report from fishermen this morning that there were boat people stranded in the waters off north Aceh," Aceh provincial search and rescue chief Budiawan told AFP.

Three people-smugglers accused of trafficking thousands of people were killed in a gunfight with Bangladeshi police Friday, officers said, days after dozens of migrant remains were found in Thailand.

Police said the three "notorious" traffickers had died after being shot during an anti-trafficking raid in the southern coastal town of Teknaf in the Cox's Bazar district, close to the border with Myanmar.

India took a step towards ratifying a 41-year-old border dispute with Bangladesh Wednesday that would see thousands of people living in "enclaves" being allowed to choose their nationality.

The enclaves, where pockets of one country's territory are surrounded by the other, are essentially islands of land resulting from ownership arrangements made centuries ago by local princes.

Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has claimed responsibility for the murder of an American atheist blogger in Bangladesh over two months ago, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

Avijit Roy was hacked to death by two assailants with machetes on the streets of the capital Dhaka in February as he returned from a book fair with his wife.

Authorities in Thailand uncovered a mass grave in an abandoned jungle camp Friday believed to contain the remains of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, a grisly find in a region notorious for people-smuggling routes.

The discovery was made at a remote camp in Sadao district, in Songkhla province bordering Malaysia, and comes as Thailand's junta cracks down on human trafficking following accusations that officials have been complicit in the trade.

Bangladesh's ruling Awami League party was declared the winner of mayoral elections on Wednesday after the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party boycotted the polls, claiming they were rigged.

Candidates allied to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina secured landslide victories in the capital Dhaka and port city of Chittagong following the BNP's withdrawal several hours into voting on Tuesday, polling officers said.

A massive earthquake killed more than 1,200 people Saturday as it tore through large parts of Nepal, toppling office blocks and towers in Kathmandu and triggering a deadly avalanche at Everest base camp.

Officials said at least 1,170 people are known to have died in Nepal, making it the quake-prone Himalayan nation's worst disaster in more than 80 years.

Tearful and angry survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster gathered at the factory site Friday to protest against poor compensation on the two-year anniversary of the tragedy that claimed more than 1,100 lives.

About 2,000 survivors, some on crutches, and families of victims held hands in a show of solidarity at the ruins of the factory complex which imploded in 2013 in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.

A Bangladeshi court has sentenced a confessed serial killer to hang for the murder of a female garment worker who was tortured before being thrown in a river, a prosecutor said Thursday.

A judge sentenced Rasu Khan to death for the murder of the 19-year-old in 2008, but he has confessed to killing in a similar manner 10 other women, mostly garment workers.

Holding a photograph of her son in one hand and a bone in another, Mehera stands silently surrounded by rubble at the site which once housed Bangladesh's ill-fated Rana Plaza factory complex.

Her son Babu Mia, 23, was on shift in one of the complex's five garment factories when it collapsed on the morning of April 24, 2013, leaving more than 1,100 people dead in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.