“My mother died in my arms in the crushed car”

"My mother was in my arms as she breathed her last – crushed inside the car."

Ria Moni, the newlywed who narrowly escaped death during yesterday's tragedy in Dhaka's Uttara, lamented in the morgue of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College.

"Blood was oozing out of my mother's mouth and nose. She couldn't even speak her last words to me," Ria said, breaking down in tears.

"I couldn't do anything to save her… how will my younger brother live without our mother?"

Ria's mother and four of her relatives were crushed to death after a segment of a box girder of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project fell from a crane on a car in Dhaka's Uttara area yesterday (August 15, 2022).

"My little cousin was sleeping in my aunt's lap. He died in his sleep," she said.

"Why did they toy with peoples' lives? We've lost everything. We want highest punishment for those responsible."

After the girder segment fell on the car, Ria and her husband Rezaul Karim Ridoy were rescued and rushed to a hospital in Uttara for treatment.

They are out of danger, and today, the couple went to the morgue to see their dead relatives.

Ridoy, who lost his father in the incident, asked: "Who will be held accountable for this sheer negligence?"

"We are pleading: please take proper steps so that no other family faces such tragedy again."