Bone-chilling cold coupled with thick fog has thrown normal life into disarray in many parts of the country, causing sufferings for people.
Low-income people, including day labourers and farmers, are the worst victims of the extreme weather which also disrupted road, waterways and air communications across the country on Tuesday.
The people in cold-hit areas, especially Rangpur, have urged the government to strengthen its relief efforts as they were encountering cold northern winds in rickety homes with inadequate warm clothes.
Char dwellers remained engulfed in a dense fog most of the day amid chilly wind.
Diarrhoea has broken out among children while daily wage earners and farmers suffered a lot, particularly in remote areas, as they have no alternative but to venture outdoors to earn their livelihoods.
Health experts have advised that children and elderly people should always be covered in warm clothes and consult physicians in case of lingering cold-related health problems.
Dense fog severely affected visibility on highways and triggered long tailback, forced the authorities to suspend ferry services for up to seven hours and delayed flight operations at airports.
On Tuesday, the temperature dipped to 8.5 degrees Celsius in Sreemangal of Moulvibazar. The average minimum temperature hovered around 12-15 degrees Celsius across the country.
The dense fog also led to road accidents in different parts of the country, killing several people.
A man was killed in a road accident in Shariatpur in the early hours on Tuesday while returning home after receiving his expatriate brother from the Dhaka airport.
According to Sheikh Shariful Alam, officer-in-charge of Damudya Police Station, the accident took place around 2:00am due to poor visibility caused by dense fog.
Hundreds of vehicles queued on both sides of the Padma River as Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation (BIWTC) halted the ferry service on Paturia-Daulatdia route for six hours and five ferries were stranded in the middle of the river for hours amid inclement weather.
The ferry service on the Aricha-Kazirhat route was also halted for seven hours for the same reason.
According to the BIWTC Aricha office, thick fog disrupted ferry service on these two routes since Monday midnight. The ferry service on the Aricha-Kazirhat route was halted at 2:30am while that on the Paturia-Daulatdia route at 3:40am in fear of accidents amid reduced visibility.
BIWTC Daulatdia ghat office manager Mohammad Salahuddin said, “The ferry service was suspended to avoid accidents as dense fog disrupted visibility. Once the fog subsided, the ferry service returned to normalcy.”
Flight operations at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) were disrupted as heavy fog engulfed the airport and nearby areas.
According to HSIA officials, flight operations were remained suspended from 6:00am to 9:05am. Four flights, which were scheduled to land at HSIA, were diverted to Chattogram and Sylhet airports. “Due to the low visibility, no flight took off at the Dhaka airport from 6:00am to 9:00am. The flight landing returned to normalcy at 9:05am when the intensity of fog reduced,” HSIA Executive Director Group Captain Kamrul Islam said.
Several sources at the Dhaka airport said a US-Bangla Airlines flight from Doha landed at Sylhet and flights from Singapore and Sharjah landed at Chattogram due to fog. Biman’s flight from Dammam was also sent to Sylhet.
A Biman flight from Kuala Lumpur to Dhaka landed six hours late. Besides, Saudia flight from Riyadh and Madina to Dhaka, US-Bangla flight to Muscat and Fly Dubai flight from Dubai missed schedules due to dense fog.
Generally, aircraft can take off on runways with a visual range of 2,000 metres.
