Another cold spell by month-end
Temperature will rise gradually from today taming the cold wave now sweeping the country but dense fog could continue disrupting communications for the next three-four days.
And the country is likely to experience another cold spell at the end of this month, Met office in Dhaka told The Daily Star last night.
The lowest temperature yesterday was 7.2 degrees Celsius in Jessore and the highest was 29.8 in Sandwip.
Impoverished people in the northern districts and the urban poor are the worst-hit in the persisting cold bite.
Lalmonirhat Deputy Commissioner Mokhlesur Rahman Sarker said they have already supplied 6,000 pieces of blanket among cold-hit people in the district. And his office has asked for allocation of more warm clothes from the ministry concerned.
Ferry services on Mawa-Kawrakandi and Paturia-Daulatdia routes remained suspended for over 12 hours till yesterday noon due to thick fog.
Our correspondents in Munshiganj and Manikganj report that ferry services were suspended at about 10:45pm on Friday. Fog forced five ferries to anchor in the middle of the Padma on Mawa-Kawrakandi route, causing sufferings to more than 800 passengers.
Several hundred vehicles, including passenger buses, remained stranded on either side of the river, said Chandra Shekhar Roy, assistant manager of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation (Mawa station).
Suspension of ferry and launch services on Paturia-Daulatdia route Friday night caused similar traffic jams on both sides of the Padma and sufferings to passengers.
Contacted, BIWTC Manager (Aricha section) Bidyut Kumar Saha said movement of ferry and launch was disrupted from 10:30pm on Friday and resumed after 10:30am yesterday as fog cleared.
Several thousand vehicles lined up at Paturia and Daulatdia at 11:00am yesterday. Passenger buses and vehicles carrying emergency goods were being ferried on a priority basis, he added.
