Death toll from Saturday’s trawlers capsize in river Dhanu in Sunamganj reached 37 with recovery of two more bodies on Sunday morning, local officials said.
The rescue team, which had been sent from Dhaka, could not trace any more victim of the accident during a four-hour rescue operation which ended at 2-30pm, they said.
Local sources claimed that at least one more victim of the trawler capsize still remained missing till Sunday afternoon.
Alal Uddin of village Udiarpar under Itna Upazila of Kishorganj claimed his younger bother Ataur Rahman, 23, who was a passenger on the ill-fated trawler, has been missing since the accident.
The trawler capsized on Saturday evening at Dhanu Baak, a tributary of the river Surma, near Alipur under Jamalganj Upazila in Sunamganj.
The accident occurred when the passenger trawler collided head-on with another sand-laden trawler.
The local administration, however, said there was no further claim about any missing person by the relatives of any victim till 2-30pm when the search operation was suspended.
Local villagers recovered the bodies of two children—Kali Begum, 10, and Takdir Hosain, 9,—from the Surma river near Alipur village in the morning.
Rescue workers of Fire Brigade and Civil Defense in collaboration with local villagers recovered 35 dead bodies of the victims between Saturday night and early hours of Sunday, the local administration said.
Some 60 day labourers with their family and children were returning to their village home in Itna and Mithmain in Kishorganj by the trawler from the Bholaganj Stone Quarry under Companiganj Upazila in Sylhet.
Of the 37 deceased, 20 were women and 17 children while the male passengers of the boat managed to swim to the river banks, local sources said.
Local upazila nirbahi officer Abul Hashem told New Age over mobile phone that an 11-member rescue team from Dhaka started their operation at 10-30am at Dhanu Baak and its downstream area on river Surma.
‘But they could not trace any more bodies. They closed their search at about 2-30pm,’ the UNO said. He said the identity of the body of a boy, aged about 5-year, could not be ascertained till 4-00pm.
Fayezur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Sunamganj, said the district administration in association with local lawmaker Moazzem Hosen distributed Tk 3,000 per family of the deceased persons to carry the bodies to their home for burial.
‘All the bodies were handed over to their relatives and family members before noon,’ he added.
