Lamia Akter Sonia went missing on Monday after arriving to pick up her daughter, Asmaul Islam Zaira, a third-grader at Milestone School and College in Uttara.
Family members later discovered a photo of Sonia’s burnt NID card circulating on Facebook, prompting relatives to rush to the crash site in search of her.
They are now showing people the scorched ID in hopes of finding her whereabouts.
Earlier, at around 1:15pm, a Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft crashed into a two-storey building named “Haider Ali” within the school campus.
The aircraft exploded on impact, igniting a fire.
By evening, the fire service confirmed 20 fatalities and reported that 171 people had been rescued with injuries—most of them children and teenagers.
At around 7:45pm, a woman named Sathi Akter was seen searching for Sonia on the school premises, holding her burnt NID card.
“My cousin, Asmaul Islam Zaira, studies in grade three here. Like every day, my aunt Lamia Akter Sonia came to pick her up. Since the plane crashed into the school building, we have not been able to find her,” Sathi said.
“We have searched various hospitals since the incident, but she is nowhere to be found. In the afternoon, we saw a photo of my aunt’s burnt NID card on Facebook. Her name and father’s name confirmed it was hers.”
Like Sathi, many others were desperately searching for missing loved ones.
One such person was Shampa Begum, looking for her eight-year-old niece, Afia Umme Mariam, with the child's school ID card in hand.
Shampa said: “My sister’s daughter, Afia Umme Mariam, is in grade three at this school. We have not been able to find her since the plane crash. We have searched several hospitals, but there is no trace of her.”
