Road accidents in a day throughout Bangladesh have claimed 24 lives of Eid-ul-Fitr holidaymakers returning to their workplaces.
The fatal accidents took place in Gazipur, Tangail, Sylhet, Brahmanbarhia and Magura on Thursday.
In Kushtia, a bus hit a tree after a tyre burst, leaving at least 30 injured and taking the count of those injured in accidents across the country to around 78.
The pressure of passengers was relatively low on Thursday, as those had not returned yet after the Eid holidays that ended on Monday were stretching their vacation acrossFriday and Saturday.
In Gazipur, eight, including three children, died on the spot when the auto-rickshaw they were travelling in was rammed by a train.
A DEMU train crashed into the vehicle when its driver was trying to cross an ‘unsafe level-crossing’ at Hyderabad around 3pm.
“The auto-rickshaw was packed and its engine failed while it was still on the tracks,” said Joydebpur Police OC Rezaul Hasan Reza.
The vehicle was struck and dragged by the train and for almost half a kilometre, witnesses said.
Most of those who died were relatives. The driver, too, died.
The crossing had no ‘stop’ sign, Joydebpur Railway Junction Police Outpost ASI Dadan Miah said.
Naojor Highway Police Camp SI Bahar Alam said a youth was killed when a bus hit his bike on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway in South Salna early in the morning.
Police in Sylhet revised the number of people killed in a road crash from five to three, rectifying a counting error caused by two bodies that had been halved.
The victims included two women. Twenty others were injured when a bus fell into a roadside ditch at Brahmangram on the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway.
Osmani Nagar Police Station OC Morsalin Ahmed initially said, “Two of the bodies had been cut into two, which had initially made us think that five people had been killed.”
Six people were reported dead after a bus fell into a roadside ditch at Basail in Tangail around 3pm.
Police said two more people succumbed to their injuries while being taken to hospital.
The accident on the Dhaka-Tangail Highway left 25 people gravely injured, police said.
The ‘Binimay Paribahan’ bus was in its way to Dhaka from Tangail’s Dhanbarhi, when it veered off the highway, said Gorail’s Highway Police SI Mozammel Hossain.
Just a day after the government banned auto-rickshaws on highways to curb accidents, two men on an auto-rickshaw were killed when a bus ran over the three-wheeler in Brahmanbarhia.
The accident on the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway at Sarail Upazila left at least three others injured, police say.
A Sylhet-bound bus of ‘Shyamoli Paribahan’ ran over the auto-rickshaw, killing the two on the spot, Sub-Inspector Md Jahangir Alam of Hatihata highway police outpost said quoting locals.
The government has forbidden the plying of auto-rickshaws on national highways as road crashes, involving three-wheelers, has been increasing alarmingly.
In Magura, a bike collided head-on with a bus on Faridpur-Magura road in Kasundi area in the afternoon.
The bikers died on the spot, Magura Town Sub-Inspector Kumaresh Chandra said.
Source: Bd news24