'Whenever it rains, we worry someone is going to die'

Three road signs in red warn drivers that Kadipur area on the Chapainawabganj-Rajshahi national highway is prone to accidents.

Following several accidents, the roads and highways department built two zebra marked speed breakers on that point under Rajshahi's Godagari upazila last month, although speed breakers are illegal on the highways.

But it appears those are not helping the cause.

“Whenever it rains, we worry that someone is going to die,” said Ahsan Habib, a local.

Amid torrential rain yesterday, four accidents took place on the highway, causing damages of a wide variety.

One of the accidents took place at the Kadipur point, when a truck hit an electric pole and disrupted power supply to the area.

“It was 10:00am and it was raining,” Habib said. An empty Chapainawabganj-bound truck was moving at high speed and barely saw the speed breaker, he said.

“The truck tried to stop yards ahead of the speed breaker, but it skidded and bumped when it hit the speed breaker,” he said.

Losing control, the truck hit an electric pole and broke it, snapping electricity supply to hundreds of local people at the upazila, said Jahangir Alam, officer-in-charge of Godagari police station.

“The truck is still occupying half of the highway. We couldn't move it fearing further damage as the truck is still holding the broken pole,” the OC said.

Electricity was eventually restored in the area at around 7:00pm, nine hours after the outage.

Barely a kilometre from Kadipur, another truck veered off the highway during the downpour at 9:00am yesterday, said the police.

Later in the day at 2:45pm, two speeding trucks collided head-on at Alimganj point, snapping road communications on the same highway for an hour.

However, no casualties were reported in either of the accidents.

Meanwhile, this correspondent saw some transport workers rescuing a bus that veered off the highway at Godagari's Baliaghata area at 7:00pm. Police however said the incident was yet to be reported.

The entire 45km Rajshahi-Chapainawabganj highway is considered risky, especially since the highway was repaired in June. A total of six warning signs are there saying the road is prone to accidents.

Transport workers blame faulty repair of the highway, while roads and highways department says reckless driving is the main reason of accidents.

Md Azimuddin Liton, who often drives heavy trucks to Sona Mosque land port using the highway, pointed at faulty roads.

“During rain, all highways get slippery. But this highway has another phenomenon. There is only bitumen on the highway, and no stones, so it has no traction to hold vehicles during rain. During rain it feels like we're driving on an oil-covered road,” he said.

Suniti Chakma, executive engineer of Roads and Highways Department in Rajshahi, refuted allegations of bad roads and said “Finding a nicely constructed road, drivers ply their vehicles in full throttle. And inevitably, accidents happen.”

Liton said if it was only the drivers' fault, accidents would not have occurred on every rainy day. “Same drivers are plying vehicles at other highways without any accident”, he said.