Hailstorm, rain take country unawares
At least eight people, including two sisters, died in incidents triggered by a sudden midday hailstorm that caught many off-guard in the capital and elsewhere in the country yesterday.
Another man died in Patuakhali after being struck by a lightning in the morning.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Six of the victims died after a sand-laden vessel collided with a trawler and sank in the Dhaleshwari river in Naryanganj with 28 labourers on board during the nor'wester around 12:30pm, said Deputy Assistant Director Dino Moni Sharma of Fire Service and Civil Defence.
Fire Service divers recovered six bodies as of midnight yesterday.
The victims were identified as Taleb, Nizam, Sujan, Sabuj, Shahin and Shariful -- all from Ullapara upazila of Sirajganj district. They were aged between 18 and 45.
Some of the labourers managed to swim ashore, said the Fire Service official. "We do not know if anyone else is missing."
The deputy commissioner's office in Narayanganj allocated Tk 20,000 for the families of each of the deceased for burials, Sharma added.
In another incident, nine-year-old Bithi and her sister Chumki, 7, died as a wall collapsed on them after the storm blew away the roof of their house at Noapara village in Narsingdi Sadar upazila, confirmed Iqbal Hossain, in-charge of Madhabdi police camp.
Earlier in the morning, a 40-year farmer named Abbas Mir was killed by a thunderbolt in Taterkathi village of Bauphal upazila in Patuakhali.
Seeing the dark clouds, he had come out of his house to cover a stake of paddy to protect it from rain when the lightning struck him.
In Munshiganj, at least 25 students of Kazishal Hazigaon Humayun High School at Sirajdikhan suffered injuries as a portion of the roof of the tin-shed school building collapsed during the storm.
Critically injured, some of them were rushed to Mitford Medical College Hospital and National Institute of Traumatology & Orthopaedic Rehabilitation in the capital.
Meanwhile in the capital, nearly 20 people were injured by the hailstorm. Fourteen of them were employees of community healthcare services. They were staging a hunger strike at the Central Shahid Minar.
They all took treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said hospital sources.
The storm that lasted for about 15 minutes forced the Bangla Academy authorities to shut the ongoing Ekushey Book Fair for the day as the hailstorm wrecked some book stalls and the rainwater formed puddles on the fair ground.
A section of the boundary wall of the Supreme Court collapsed and some trees were damaged by storm.
Those living in the Barisal city suffered power outage for about 12 hours after, according to Executive Engineer Amjad Hossain of Power Development Board, strong winds in the early morning uprooted five electricity poles.
A number of trees were also uprooted, which partially damaged some 15 roadside houses partially.
CITY CAUGHT OFF-GUARD
The morning in the capital was hot and sunny until around noon when pitch-black clouds formed over the city and enveloped it with darkness, so much so that vehicles had to turn the headlights on to see the road.
As the strong winds started to rattle the windows of the houses, many on the streets were found running for shelters and cars parking on the roadsides immediately.
Within minutes, the rain -- coupled with hailstones -- started pelting down. Snow-white layers of hailstones covered the city roads.
The storm struck the roadside vendors, who run their businesses mostly under the open sky, very hard.
"We were overwhelmed by the sudden storm. It was very difficult to move to a shelter with all our goods," said Zakir Hossain, who sells fruits on Bangabandhu Avenue in Gulistan.
The Kalbaishakhi (nor'wester) swept through only some parts of the capital and the country.
It was an early Kalbaishakhi already forecast, said the duty forecasting officer at Dhaka Met Office, adding it was "not really that unusual" since they had recorded 43 such storms in February over the past 15 years.
Comments