Accidents and Road Damage Trigger 12-Kilometer Traffic Jam on Dhaka-Sylhet Highway
Photo Collected
A severe traffic gridlock spanning 12 kilometers paralyzed the Dhaka-Sylhet highway near Sarail in Brahmanbaria, leaving thousands of commuters stranded from Thursday afternoon through Friday. The congestion, which originated at the Bishwaroad intersection, was triggered by a series of vehicle breakdowns, fatal accidents, and the poor condition of the roadway.
According to local reports and police, the disruption began Thursday afternoon when a cargo truck broke down near the highway. The situation deteriorated by early evening when a passenger bus struck and killed 34-year-old Tofazzal Hossain in the Beratola area. Following the fatal collision, the bus driver fled the scene, prompting local residents to vandalize the vehicle and gather on the road, which brought traffic to a complete standstill.
Compounding the crisis, a head-on collision between two cargo trucks occurred late Thursday night in the West Kuttapara area. Although highway police and fire service personnel eventually cleared the wreckage after rescuing a trapped driver, the backlog had already extended significantly along the arterial route.
By Friday afternoon, the congestion had stretched from Beratola to Bariura, affecting the Chittagong-Comilla-Sylhet highway and the Sarail-Nasirnagar-Lakhai regional road. Motorists reported extreme delays, with some drivers noting that a stretch typically requiring ten minutes of travel time took upwards of two hours to traverse.
Authorities attributed the ongoing delays to a combination of heavy weekend cargo traffic and the treacherous state of the Bishwaroad intersection. Large potholes at the junction have forced heavy vehicles to navigate the area at a crawling pace, while some drivers have exacerbated the gridlock by attempting to drive against the flow of traffic.
Khatihata Highway Police Sub-Inspector Abdul Baten confirmed that officers were deployed across the affected zones to manage the flow and clear bottlenecks. While only one lane remained operational for Dhaka-bound traffic from Sylhet for much of the morning, officials expressed optimism that the situation would normalize as cleanup operations concluded.
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