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Eid Rush at Peak

Tailbacks take toll on home-goers

Star Report
The holiday spirit of thousands was ruined as they were stuck in traffic jams on highways while heading home.
The surge in traffic volume due to Eid and puja holidays caused vehicles to grind to a halt on many key highways of the country.
There were delays in train departures and launches were overcrowded as well.
The exciting journey home was miserable formost.
People using the highways, especially Dhaka-Tangail highway, were worse off as hundreds of vehicles got stuck in gridlocks since Thursday evening and it got even worse yesterday, taking a heavy toll on the holidaymakers.
For many, it took twice or more the usual time to reach home.
The traffic movement at Gabtoli Bus
Terminal was disrupted during the day due to the largest cattle market in the capital being held there. Trucks carrying cows were parked haphazardly there.
Law enforcers struggled to control the huge number of vehicles on the road.
People had to wait hours for buses and trains at stops and stations while hundreds were seen getting on the roof of launches at Sadarghat
FROM PAGE 1
Launch Terminal.
ROAD TO HOME
Many bus passengers were seen wandering in and around Gabtoli and Mohakhali bus terminals as the buses on their incoming trips were very late.
"Our schedule was 8:00am. But it has been four hours since ... I'm unsure when the bus will arrive," Mohammad Saju, a passenger heading for Bogra, told The Daily Star around noon at Mazar Road.
"1 don't know when I will reach home," he said.
The bus operators blamed traffic jams and shortage of ferries for the delays and disruptions to their schedules.
"No bus could reach Dhaka on time due to rush of vehicles and cattlecarrying trucks. Not only us, every bus operator had to deal with two to four hours of delays,1' said Md Babul, a ticket counter supervisor of a bus operator in Gabtoli.
Home-goers heading for the northern districts had to suffer immensely due to a 30-kilometre tailback stretching from Chandra of Gazipur to the eastern end of Bangabandhu Bridge on Dhaka-Tangail highway for more than three hours since 6:00am, reports our Tangail correspondent.
The tailback was caused by an accident, a head-on collision between a truck and a bus, in Gharinda area of Tangail, said Saleh Mohammad Tanvir, superintendent of police (SP) ofTangail.
No casualties were reported.
Home-goers were in distress stranded in the jam where several thousand vehicles were stuck. Women and children bore the brunt.
"My children fell sick in the heat,” said Rokeya Akhter, 37, who was going to Sirajganj with her family.
Though the congestion eased after 9:00am, another jam, 25km long stretching from Chandra to Mirzapur bypass, triggered around noon and lasted until 3:00pm.
Bappi Khan, a businessman from Dhaka, started for Tangail around 10:00am and reached home after 5:00pm.
"I got stranded around noon. The bus moved like a snail from Chandra to Mirzapur," he said. It usually takes three hours to reach Tangail from Dhaka.
Law enforcers were struggling to ease the traffic situation, but to little effect.
“The situation worsened as the volume of vehicles became four to five times the usual," said a traffic inspector ofTangail.
Traffic was slow moving.
The communications minister went to Tangail yesterday afternoon and instructed law enforcers and administration officials there about handling the traffic.
The situation on the ground improved around 8:00pm.
Meanwhile, passengers heading for the south also faced immense sufferings due to long queues at Paturia and Daulatdia ferry terminals as the existing number of ferries could not tackle the high volume of traffic.
Vehicles carrying cattle only made the situation worse.
Nasim Reza, who works for a bank, was scheduled to leave Dhaka for Satkhira at 11:00pm Thursday. But his bus eventually started around 3:30am yesterday and it had to wait around four hours to get on a ferry at Paturia.
"My toddler became restless. The jam and the long wait ruined the joy of going home," he said. It took Nasim more than 15 hours to reach Satkhira yesterday, which usually is an eighthourjourney.
The passengers who were going to their homes in Chittagong region also faced trouble thanks to a 11-km jam between Meghna and Gumti bridges.
The tailback at Mawa ferry terminal, with which 21 southern districts are
connected, stretched to about two kilometres, our Munshiganj correspondent reports.
Some 300 buses, cars and other vehicles were seen queuing at the terminal yesterday morning.
ON THE RAIL
Delays in train departures also caused sufferings. People were seen waiting anxiously for trains at Kamalapur Railway Station since morning.
As soon as Mohanagar Provati, which was supposed to go to Chittagong, arrived on Platform-3 around 10:10am, the passengers became busy. “Oh! At last it came," Sumon, a student, said out loud.
The train was scheduled to leave for Chittagong at 7:40am.
Passengers of other trains complained that most of the trains were running behind schedule.
Rangpur Express and Ekota Express were also late.
Station Manager Md Khairul Bashir of Kamalapur Railway Station said due to an accident on Thursday, trains arrived in Dhaka late forcing them to delay their departures for three hours.
On Rangpur Express and Ekota Express being late, he said, "We are giving more time to holidaymakers to board, load their luggage and settle down on the trains."
About 65,000 passengers are leaving Dhaka on 66 trains every day. "These trains have sitting arrangement for about 50,000 passengers. Another 15,000 tickets were sold to people who are willing to travel standing," he added.
ON THE WATER
Throughout the day yesterday, Sadarghat Launch Terminal was crowded beyond belief. A number of launches were seen overloading. There were passengers on the roofs as well, violating the law.
A mobile court led by Executive Magistrate Mamotaj Begum fined
Karnafuli-9, Rajdut-7 and MV Panama-2 Tk 50,000 each for overloading.
The launches violated the government rule by not hanging fare charts. None of the launch staff could give any proper explanation as to why no fare chart was there and why they took so many people on board during the two-hour long drive of the mobile court in the afternoon.
Most of the launches did not set off on time as they were taking more and more passengers. The passengers did not seem too bothered with safety.
" I did not get any seat but I get to go home. That's why I climbed on the roof," said a passenger.