Army winds up rescue operation

Bangladesh Army yesterday closed its rescue operation 82 hours after Bahaddarhat flyover in Chittagong partially collapsed, killing 12 people.
The army declared the withdrawal of its technical team from the construction site of the flyover where 50 people were also injured after three girders fell on a kitchen market on Saturday in the port city.
Col Nayeem Ashraf, coordinator of the rescue team, said, “We have cut the girders into pieces and looked for bodies. Finding none under the rubble on the road, we have decided to end the operation.”
However, the locals have been demanding to pump the water out of the nearby Bahaddar Bari pond as they fear that there might have been more bodies under the girder that fell in the pond.
On the locals' demand, Ashraf said four bodies were recovered from the pond during the search operation conducted by the Navy divers, Fire Brigade and local divers.
The divers used special cameras to search under the water and made sure that there were no more bodies in the pond.
Ruhul Amin, deputy director of Fire Service and Civil Defence, Chittagong, said they have only two pumps which can work for up to four hours at a stretch which is not enough to pump the pond.
Humayun Kabir, additional deputy commissioner of Chittagong (ADC-Land), said they found no reason to pump out the pond as no one has claimed for their missing relatives.
The five-member team led by Additional Deputy Commissioner Khaled Mamun Chowdhury in their preliminary probe found security measures for the workers as well as the locals were absent at the construction site and also negligence of the authorities in constructing the flyover.