Hundreds of people have been suffering on the Dhaka-Tangail Highway since Thursday night in a traffic jam spanning over 60km from Gorai, in Mirzapur upazila, all the way to the eastern part of Bangabandhu Bridge, Kalihati upazila, Tangail.
Vehicles moved at a snail’s pace on the Dhaka–Bangabandhu Bridge road stretch due to the giant tailback.
Traffic on Dhaka-Bangabandhu Bridge Road up to Gorai barely moved between Thursday night and yesterday evening because of a huge rush of vehicles on the highway.
The Gorai Highway Police Officer-in-Charge, Zobaed, said the tailback had begun in Kaliakair when a North Bengal-bound passenger bus broke down on the Kaliakair Bridge around 2:30am, disrupting traffic movement for more than half-an-hour before it was removed from the road.
Also, a huge number of buses, private cars and other passenger vehicles were returning from the north to Dhaka after the Eid holiday.
The situation remained the same all day long and the capital-bound people caught in tailbacks, particularly women and children, were forced to wait in buses for hours.
“We were expected to reach Dhaka by 11am but our bus was stuck at Rabna bypass of Tangail sadar till 3pm,” said Alamgir Hossen, who was going to Dhaka from Rajshahi by bus with his family.
Highway Police Inspector of Elenga station Kamruzzaman Raz said vehicle movement from Gorai to the east-end of Bangabandhu Bridge was extremely slow.
“Heavy rain on Thursday night and Friday morning to noon was another cause for the jam. Yesterday at noon two trucks broke down and stopped in the middle of the highway at pillar number eight at Jokarchor, Kalihati,” he said.
“We are trying to remove these trucks,” he told our correspondent.
A Thakurgaon-bound Golden Life Paribahan bus which left Mohakhali station in Dhaka at 10pm on Thursday did not reach the Rabna area of Tangail until more than 14 hours later, at 12:30pm, the driver Shajahan Miah said.
“I was supposed to reach Thakurgaon at 4am,” the driver said.
The Superintendent of Police in Tangail, Saleh Mohammed Tanvir, said thousands of people were heading to Dhaka after celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr at home.
“It is really very tough to tackle the situation after Eid. Moreover there were some accidents and heavy rain, although we are trying our best to keep order on the highway,” he said.
Our Bogra correspondent reported that Dhaka-bound passengers in Bogra were trapped there since the buses that left Dhaka on Thursday night did not reach Bogra yesterday. Passengers were seen waiting at the bus stops in Bogra from yesterday morning.
At the time this report was filed, no buses from Dhaka had reached Bogra. No one could make the journey back to the capital, bus staff and passengers told the Dhaka Tribune.
Sources said the traffic gridlock had stretched more than 6km in Sirajaganj.
Aminul Islam, joint secretary of the Motor Owners Association of Bogra, said around 1,500 buses that travelled from various northern districts to Dhaka were stuck in the gridlock.
Our Correspondent in Manikganj reported that thousands of passengers were facing serious problems at Aricha and Paturia Ghat as they were being forced to pay triple the usual fare or even more to board buses. The bus services were charging Tk300 for a trip from Manikganj to Gabtoli, while the usual fare was Tk100.
They were charging Tk200 to travel to Nabinagar in Savar, more than triple the usual fare of Tk60. Many passengers were also forced to ride on risky open-bed trucks due to the bus shortage.
Md. Halim Mia, of Goalanda upazila, Rajbari, said the private service Padma Lines had charged Tk300 for the journey to Gabtoli from Paturia. The actual fare was only Tk100, he said.
Asya Begum, a garment worker at Savar EPZ, said she rode on a truck as there were no buses. She paid Tk200 to go to Nabinagar, Tk140 more than the normal bus fare.
Momin Sheikh, an auto-rickshaw driver living in the Mirpur area of Dhaka, travelled with his wife and daughter. He came to Dhaka from Pirojpur by bus and was charged Tk500, instead of the usual Tk350.
Rahat, a garment worker from Nazirpur, said he had also paid Tk150 more than the usual fare of Tk350 for the bus to Nazirpur from Gabtoli.