Fog disrupts ferries

Ferry operations remained suspended for several hours at the country’s two key river crossings– Mawa-Kewrakandi and Paturia-Daulatdia — on Friday night, like on many occasions this winter.

Ferry services were stopped around 10:30pm on Friday due to heavy fog that left six ferries stranded in mid-river that included a ferry in which Khulna City Corporation Mayor Talukdar Abdul Khalek was travelling to Dhaka.

An official of the MV Faridpur, Abdul Aziz, told bdnews24.com: “The VIP ferry carrying the Mayor got stuck at the Hazra Channel of the Padma River. It reached the terminal around 4:30am after the fog eased.”

All the ferries reached their destinations in the morning, manager at BIWTC’s Mawa terminal Sirajul Haque said.

He said the ferries were forced to anchor in the mid-river as heavy fog scaled down visibility drastically.

The operations resumed around 4am on Saturday after fog cleared, Bangladesh Inland Water Transportation Corporation officials said.

The abrupt suspension in ferry services resulted in huge queues on both sides of the rivers. Nearly 500 vehicles were stranded in Mawa side.

The ferry operations at the Patuaria-Daualtdia crossing came to a halt around 2am and resumed six hours later, manager of BIWTC’s Aricha office Ashraf Ullah Khan said.

Khan said during this period four ferries were stranded in mid-river.

Thousands of vehicles were waiting on both sides, he said.

bdnews24.com

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