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First spell of biting cold in N-districts

Dense fog disrupts ferries

Our Correspondent, Thakurgaon
People of the northern districts have started experiencing the season's first cold spell.
The sweeping bonechilling cold, coupled with wind and fog that began Saturday, has disrupted normal life in Thakurgaon and Panchagarh.
Poor and disadvantaged people bore the brunt of the cold while increasing number of patients, especially children and elderly people, crowded the hospitals with cold-related diseases.
The minimum tempera-ture recorded in Thakurgaon was 15 degree Celsius while it was 13 degrees in Panchagarh yesterday.
The sun remained invisible during the last two days.
A large number of men and women rushed to makeshift roadside markets for purchasing second-hand warm clothes as the prices are more then double in the posh markets.
The shopkeepers and vendors have been taking advance of the shivering cold to hike prices of warm clothes, people alleged.
Besides, cold-stricken poor people of different villages of the districts are suffering for lack of warm clothes, including blankets.
Although different gov-ernment and nongovernment organisations had been distributing warm clothes among the poor people, it was too inadequate in respect of the demand.
In Panchagarh, child and elderly patients thronged the district's Sadar Hospital
with complaints of cold-related diseases, like pneumonia and cold diarrhoea.
As the people were forced to stay indoors, business and trading were hampered while the attendance in schools and colleges became thin.
Deputy Director of DAE, Thakurgaon, Bhupesh Kumar Mondal, said farmers were yet to face trouble to continue their farm work as the situation was not much alarming.
The plants of crops and vegetables are yet to be affected by winter, he said.
Meanwhile, ferry services on the Daulatdia-Paturia and Shimulia-Kawarakandi routes in the Padma River were disrupted for over four-hours due to dense fog yesterday, report our correspondents.
Plying of other water vessels also came to a halt at around 4:00am due to blurred visibility.
Two ferries with a large number of vehicles and passengers were kept anchored at Daulatdia while three ferries at Paturia.
Besides, 11 ferries remained stopped in the middle of the Padma River since 4:00am.
Passengers suffered a lot as a large number of vehicles remained stranded on both terminals of the river.
Ferry services on the routes resumed between 8:00am and 9:00am when fog started to disappear after sunrise.