Several hundred passengers suffered while rail communications over Dhaka-Gazipur route remained suspended for around eight hours yesterday after an intercity train broke down near Matikata railway crossing in Gazipur.
An axle of Dhaka-bound Ekota Express came off with a loud bang around 8:40am, bringing the train to a halt, said Senior Sub-Assistant Engineer (Joydevpur) Ashraf Uddin of Bangladesh Railway.
It was a miracle that the carriage concerned did not derail. No casualties were reported, he said.
Some 300 passengers on the train suffered till 5:00pm, when a relief train from Kamalapur Railway Station from the capital arrived to take away the affected carriage.
During this time, two trains, Kolkata-bound Moitree Express and Khulna-bound Sundarban Express, carrying some 1,500 passengers, were stranded at Joydevpur and Mouchak railway stations respectively, said Station Master Zia Uddin of Joydevpur Railway Station.
Several other trains were also stranded at Mirzapur Railway Station in Tangail.
Not able to bear with the delay, many passengers of Ekota Express resorted to walking or took rickshaws to the nearest bus stop, several kilometres from the scene of incidence, to reach the capital.
Travelling alone, Mariam Nesa, 55, said she had boarded the train at midnight on Thursday to reach her son’s residence in the capital’s Motijheel. Standing at Chandra, around 10km from the spot, at noon, she was still struggling to reach a nearby bus stop.
Source: The Daily Star
