Bus pulled out of Turag 55 hours inside accident
The death toll from Sunday’s bus accident at Savar reached 11 with about 40 still missing till Tuesday evening when rescuers pulled out the 52-seat bus from the River Turag, more than 55 hours inside the accident.
Seven bodies could be found several kilometres downstream and two others inside the bus on Tuesday, the local administration said. Jahangirnagar University student Monwara Khatun Tara, 20, was found dead on Suinday and paint trader Moqbul Hossain Kazi on Monday.
The authorities called off the rescue operation at night but people were still looking for their relatives, who were in the bus, headed for Savar, which skidded off into the river just before getting on the Salehpur Bridge near Amin Bazar on the outskirts of capital. Six to seven people could swim ashore.
The Savar upazila nirbahi officer, Rabbi Miah, told New Age they had not received any information in on the people going missing. ‘But trawlers will keep searching for bodies getting afloat downstream.’
Four bodies were found afloat five kilometers downstream at Totalipara of Savar, three bodies were recovered about 8 kilometres downstream at Basila and two others were recovered from inside the bus.
Majibur Rahman Mizan, 65, of Jakijora at Shabalaya Manikganj, and an unnamed woman, aged about 40, were found dead at Totalipara about 1:30pm.
Anwar Hossain, 55, of Haladia in Lauhajang in Munshiganj, and his friend Prashanta Kumar Bhowmik, 60, were found at Totalipara about 4:15pm.
Otobi employee Masud Rana Suman, 25, Asian University student Ariful Islam, 22, and driver Khurshid Alam, 25, of the Dird Washing Plant at Savar were found dead afloat at Basila about 10:30am.
Navy and fire service and civil defence divers brought out the body of painter Omar Faruk, 50, from inside the bus about 7:30am and the body of Abdul Momin, 22, was found inside the bus about 6:00pm.
The army brought in 3 rakers and the fire service and civil defence brought in a raker and a crane to pull the bus out of the river after the cargo vessels had failed to lift the vehicle because of strong current.
Relatives of Hafizur Rahman, Mamunur Rashid, Russel Hossain and Abdul Mannan, Islam Ali and several others, who remained missing, were on Sunday evening still waiting for the recovery of the bodies.
Several thousand people, meanwhile, the relatives of the people who went missing, hindering the movement of vehicles on the Dhaka–Aricha Road throughout the day, witnesses said.
