More people succumbed to cold-related ailments yesterday as a severe cold wave with dense fog is sweeping through length and breadth of the country for more than a week.
In the last four days, at least 27 people died of cold-related afflictions in Thakurgaon, Jamalpur, Jessore, Rangpur and Satkhira, report our district correspondents.
The bone-chilling weather added to the misery of the poor and disadvantaged people in the capital and elsewhere with the sun remaining almost invisible for the last nine days.
Thousands of the vulnerable people have been passing days miserably due to lack of warm clothes and foods as initiatives by the government and different non-government organisations are inadequate.
As people are forced to stay indoors by the cold spell, business and official activities are hampered while students’ attendance in schools and colleges has become thin.
Boro farmers fear the ongoing cold wave and foggy weather could damage the seedling beds that ultimately may hamper Boro cultivation.
In Thakurgaon, 10 persons including seven children died in the last three days.
Dr Md Khairul Kabir, the acting civil surgeon, acknowledged to The Daily Star that seven children aged between three days and two years died mainly due to cold related causes on Tuesday and Wednesday night.
Hazera Begum, 53, Abdul Mazid, 65, and Shakhina Bewa, 65, of the Sadar upazila died during this period.
Earlier in the week, at least 10 people including six children died in the district due to similar complications.
According to District Agriculture Extension (DAE) office, yesterday’s temperature in the district was recorded lowest at 10 degree and highest at 19 degree Celsius, a possible threat for the Boro farmers.
DAE Deputy Director Md Belayet Hossain said if the same weather persists for further several days it may hamper Boro seedlings.
The DAE officials and staff are suggesting the farmers to use polythene over the seedbeds to save them from cold and fog, he said.
In Jamalpur, at least 14 persons including three children in four upazilas of the district died during the last four days.
According to local administration and respective union parishad chairmen, the victims had been suffering from acute cold related ailments.
Deputy Commissioner Md Siraj Uddin Ahmed said 4,983 blankets were already distributed among the poor.
In Jessore, Abdul Mannan, a sub-inspector of Monirampur Police Station, died of cold-related diseases yesterday morning.
Md Sairuddin, officer-in-charge of the station, told our Benapole correspondent that Mannan, hailing from Chuadanga, felt uneasy in the morning when he went to the police station for duty.
He was suffering from serious cold-related complications. Doctors declared him dead soon after he was admitted to the Jessore Medical College Hospital.
Meanwhile, an elderly person died of cold-related diseases in Rangpur’s Pirgachha upazila.
Motiar Rahman Kandura, 75, died about 1:00pm at Pirgachha Upazila Health Complex, Dr Fahimul Islam Mondol said adding that 21 people including three children suffering from pneumonia, diarrhoea and asthma were admitted to the hospital yesterday.
Rangpur Met Office said the lowest temperature yesterday was recorded at 10.2 degree Celsius.
The sweeping cold claimed the life of a two-year-old baby in Debhata upazila of Satkhira on Wednesday night. Local physicians said Nasima Khatun, of village Noapara, died of respiratory and cold-related complications.
The bone-chilling cold wave coupled with drizzle for the last three days disrupted normal life in Narail. The minimum temperature in the district was recorded at 6.6 degrees Celsius yesterday.
Increasing number of patients, especially children and elderly people, are crowding hospitals with cold-related ailments, said Dr Moshiur Rahman Babu, Medicine consultant of Narail Sadar Hospital.
Dense fog has paralysed normal life in all the nine upazilas of Kurigram.
About three lakh people of some 250 char (shoal) areas in the district are the worst sufferers in the bitter cold, reported our Kurigram correspondent.
-With The Daily Star input
