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Sufferings for second day

People toil in tailbacks on roads back to Dhaka

Star Report
Thousands of Dhaka-bound Eid holidaymakers suffered long delays due to a massive tailback on the Dhaka-Tangail highway and a collapse in train schedules for the second consecutive day yesterday.
Desperate to return to the capital after spending a prolonged Eid vacation with their families, passengers got stranded on the highway for several hours. A heavy rush of travellers made the traffic even worse.
All the Dhaka-bound trains from the northern and southern districts operated three to eight hours behind schedule.
Launches from different southern districts to Dhaka were crammed with passengers. Many travelled on decks of vessels, defying government instructions.
Taking the opportunity of the rush of passengers, road and water transport operators charged them higher fares. WOES ON HIGHWAYS
As several vehicles broke down on the Dhaka-Tangail highway, a 70 kilometre-long tailback was built up on the road on Friday night and continued till midday yesterday.
A road blockade in Bogra worsened the traffic situation.
Sufferings
FROM PAGE 16
Transport workers put barricades at Charmatha intersection of Bogra town around 9:00am, protesting alleged toll collection by police.
They withdrew the blockade after three and a half hours upon assurances from local administration of remedial action. The blockade snapped road communications between Dhaka and 10 northern districts.
"It took me around 14 hours to reach Dhaka from Natore yesterday [Saturday], which is usually a five-hour trip," said garment worker Masud Rana.
"My bus moved very slowly all the way from Sirajganj to Dhaka," he added.
Many passengers, especially children, fell sick being trapped in the gridlock.
The traffic on the Dhaka-Tangail highway started easing around 12:00noon.
Elsewhere, a five kilometre-long tailback was created at Kawrakandi feny ghat in Madaripur. Long strings of several hundred vehicles were seen at Daulatdia and Paturia ferry terminals.
Communications on Dhaka-Chittagong highway was almost normal, except for the jam at the Kanchpur-Jatrabari entry point to the capital. It took passengers around two and a halfhours to reach Gulistan from the Kanchpur bridge, which is normallya50-minutejourney.
As the inter-district buses could not return to districts from the capital on time due to the traffic jam, hundreds of passengers waited for several hours at bus counters in different northern districts. Many even changed their tickets by deferring their trips by a day.
Highway police officials said broken down vehicles were the main reason for long tailbacks on highways. Besides, road accidents, careless driving and rainfall also contributed to it.
"When a vehicle breaks down on a highway, it becomes very difficult for us to reach there with a wrecker, because both the sides of the road get occupied by vehicles. In the meantime, the gridlock gets worse,” said Asaduzzaman Miah, deputy inspector general of highway police.
Due to shortage of buses, many passengers travelled on the roofs of buses, pickup vans and trucks to reach Dhaka.
NO RESPITE FOR TRAIN PASSENGERS
People travelling by trains also suffered a lot yesterday as train schedules collapsed due to excessive pressure of passengers.
"As there was a huge pressure of passengers at every station, trains stopped for at least 10 to 15 minutes at each stations. That is why, train schedules collapsed," said Sardar Shahdat Hossain, divisional railway manager.
Putting their lives at risk, launch passengers on the major river routes travelled on overcrowded vessels. All the launches at Barisal and Chandpur launch terminals were crammed with passengers by almost two to three times beyond their capacity.
Our correspondents from Tangail, Bogra, Gazipur, Munshiganj, Chandpur, Barisal and Madaripur contributed to this report.