A heart patient died in an ambulance on Dhaka-Chattogram highway after being trapped in a massive 40-kilometre traffic jam for nearly four hours.
The deceased, Amirunnesa, was a resident of Pranbhagabatipur village in Chandraganj upazila of Lakshmipur district. She passed away at around 3:30am on Saturday. Her grieving relatives lamented that her life could have been saved had they reached the hospital in Dhaka on time.
According to Tarek Al Hasan, a relative of the deceased, Amirunnesa fell ill with cardiac problems around 8pm on Friday. The family immediately started for Dhaka in an ambulance.
However, upon reaching Daudkandi area at around 11:00pm, the ambulance got stuck in a severe traffic gridlock. After remaining nearly stationary for around four hours, Amirunnesa breathed her last inside the vehicle.
The severe gridlock, which stretched approximately 40 kilometres from Ashariarchar in Sonargaon under Narayanganj district to Eliotganj in Cumilla, began on Friday morning and persisted well past 11am on Saturday.
Hundreds of vehicles remained stranded for hours across various stretches of the highway, from Chandina in Cumilla to Sonargaon in Narayanganj.
The traffic jam was triggered after a large crater developed on Dhaka-bound lane of the Ashariarchar Bridge, raising serious accident risks. In response, the Road Division initiated emergency repair works at around 11am on Friday.
To facilitate the repairs, one lane was closed, and vehicles were allowed to pass through the remaining lane alternately. This significantly reduced vehicular speed, gradually snowballing into a massive tailback.
The situation deteriorated further after Friday evening when a large influx of buses, trucks, and covered vans joined the highway. The gridlock quickly bypassed Ashariarchar Bridge and Daudkandi toll plaza, reaching as far as Eliotganj in Cumilla.
Stuck for hours in sweltering heat, passengers, particularly women, children, and the elderly, experienced severe distress. Many also faced acute shortages of food and drinking water.
Abu Taher, a passenger travelling from Chattogram to Bagerhat, said his vehicle was caught in the gridlock near Eliotganj at 2:30am. By 8am on Saturday, they had managed to cover only 10 kilometres to reach Amirabad.
Another passenger, Nure Akhi, a housewife who left Cumilla for Dhaka on Friday afternoon, expressed her frustration after a grueling 12-hour journey. “Dhaka-Chattogram highway is one of the busiest in the country. The authorities should have taken effective traffic-management measures before undertaking repair works. Women, children, and the elderly were left completely helpless inside buses in this intense heat,” she said.
The severe gridlock also impacted emergency vehicles and international travellers. At least five expatriates missed their scheduled flights from Dhaka on Friday and Saturday due to the traffic jam in the Cumilla portion.
A Qatar-bound expatriate recounted that his flight was scheduled for 11am on Saturday, but because of the tailback, he could not reach the airport on time and missed his flight.
Bhabarchar Highway Police Outpost In-Charge, Inspector Mohammad Shamim, said the congestion was caused by the lane repairs on Ashariarchar Bridge. He added that the highway police were working relentlessly to clear the bottleneck and alleviate the suffering of commuters.
Sub-Inspector Faruk Hossain of Daudkandi Highway Police Station said police personnel worked throughout Saturday to ease the gridlock in Cumilla section, prioritizing alternative routes for outbound expatriates to cross the highway.
Cumilla Superintendent of Police Md Anisuzzaman said on Saturday evening that two teams of the district police were coordinating with the highway police to resolve the gridlock on the highway.
