At least 8 missing as boat capsizes in Bangladesh

Dhaka, Jan. 5 (EFE) – At least eight passengers have gone missing as a boat capsized in a river near Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Wednesday, authorities said.

The boat, which was carrying over 40 passengers, sank in the Dhaleshwari River near a jetty in Narayanganj, 25 kilometers south of Dhaka, early morning morning on Wednesday, said Abdullah Arefin, deputy assistant director of the Narayanganj Fire Service.

“We received the information of eight people going missing after the accident. We conducted a search operation the whole day. We could neither locate the boat nor find any dead body,” Arefin told EFE.

Most of the passengers of the boat were able to swim ashore after it capsized.

However, some people are feared to have been trapped in the boat’s hull and fire service officials said they would resume the search operation on Thursday.

Boat accidents occur frequently in Bangladesh, where hundreds of waterways, including the Brahmaputra, Padma and Meghna rivers – all a part of the Ganges delta – are commonly used for transport.

At least 46 people died and over 50 people went missing when a large passenger boat caught fire in mid-river in the country’s Jhalokathi district on December 24.

At least 22 people were killed in the eastern Brahmanbaria district on Aug. 28 in another major boat accident last year.

According to the Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh, in 2020 a total of 313 people were killed and 371 went missing in 183 waterway accidents in the country. EFE

am/ia