As the darkness fell over the Daulatdia Ghat on Wednesday, the air grew heavy with the sound of a broken man’s agony.
Abdul Azizul stood by the black, unforgiving waters of the Padma, his clothes drenched and his frame hunched under the weight of a tragedy that transformed a routine journey into a nightmare.
“I told her so many times to stay at home,” Azizul cried out, his voice a mix of sobs and disbelief. He had been scheduled to return to his workplace in Dhaka on 29 March and had initially planned to make the trip alone.
However, his wife, Jesmin, 30, had insisted on coming along, telling him she simply did not like being away from him. Her devotion to keeping the family together led her and their young son, Abdur Rahman, onto the Souhardya Paribahan bus that departed from Kushtia at 2:30pm.
The transition from a post-Eid family trip to a catastrophe occurred at approximately 5:30pm. As the bus attempted to board a ferry at pontoon 3, the driver lost control of the vehicle, sending it plunging directly into the river.
In the chaos that followed, Azizul managed to swim to the shore, but he could only watch in horror as his wife and son were swallowed by the deep, dark water.
Standing on the riverbank, Azizul’s grief spilled into a desperate phone call to his father-in-law. “The bus fell into the water at Paturia Ghat… I couldn’t save your daughter, I couldn’t save your grandson,” he wept into the phone, his words echoing across a terminal now silent with shock.
The scale of the disaster became clear as the rescue ship, Hamza, finally raised the submerged bus at midnight on Thursday.
According to the Fire Service, the death toll has reached 26, with many of the victims being women and children who were unable to escape the sinking vehicle. Those who survived the plunge are currently being treated at the local Sadar Hospital and other health centres.
The recovery operation, however, remains haunted by the river’s power.
Dewan Sohel Rana, Deputy Assistant Director of Rajbari Fire Service and Civil Defence, noted that the intense current and the vertical position in which the bus was lifted have led to fears that some bodies may have been swept away by Padma before they could be recovered.
For Azizul, however, the river has already taken everything that mattered.
