On October 23, 2023 at 3:30 pm, two trains traveling throughout Dhaka, Bangladesh collided. While one was a cargo train, the other was actually a passenger train. At least 15 people that lost their lives in the accident were found, while many more were severely injured and are currently seeking medical attention.
Fire official Mosharraf Hossain, located in Bhairab, which is the central district of Kishoregani, stated that the fire officials arrived to the scene shortly after the wreckage of the train cars and were assisted by local residents to help extract the passengers. He described the situation as “Chaotic” to The Associated Press as the number of injured and deceased casualties is subjected to increase.
Senior fire official Azizul Haque Rajon, reporting on-site from the scene, stated that it was actually the cargo train, which was headed towards Chattogram, that crashed into the Dhaka-bound Egarosindur Godhuli Express passenger train. Two coaches were located in the back oporating the passenger train at the time of the crash.
With a wreck this big, it only makes sense for all train services to be suspended through different parts of the country. When boarding any type of public transportation, safety of all those onboard should be a priority to those operating said vehicles as well as it should not be a worry to the passengers boarding. Unfortunately, this is not amongst a small amount of train accidents in Bangladesh. It is actually common for an accident such as this one to occur. Train services in Bangladesh tend to fail due to issues such as railway crossings being left unsupervised, poor signaling and overall bad conditions of the train track. Hopefully, after a tragedy such as this one, train services in Bangladesh take action on raising more awareness towards the importance of safety precautions when dealing with trains as well as public transportation as a whole.