Staff Reporter :
Six people, including three Chinese workers, have been injured after a girder of the under-construction Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project on Dhaka’s Airport Road collapsed during its installation.
The incident happened on the road in front of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 10am on Sunday.
The police and fire service personnel rushed the spot after the incident.
The injured were admitted to the Evercare Hospital in the capital’s Bashundhara Residential Area, sources said.
Confirming the incident, Shafiqul Islam, managing director of Dhaka Bus Rapid Transit Company Limited, said that the workers were on duty when the accident happened.
BRT Project Director ASM Illias Hossain said the workers were installing the girder between two pillars at the project’s airport segment since morning. The structure collapsed when the girder fell on it, injuring the workers.
Panic craeted among the people after the collapse of the girder. Later, the vehicle movement restricted for the safety surrounding area creating huge traffic jam on the Airport road.
Officer in-Charge (OC) of Airport Police Station BM Farman Ali said the injured workers were admitted to hopital. Additonal police force deployed on the spot to ease the traffic congestion. “The traffic movements is normal now,” he added.
Duty Officer of Fire Service control room Ershad Hossain said that one unit of fire service rushed the spot after the incident. The injured were taken to a hospital before fire serivce personnel reached the spot.
Meanwhile, a portion of a pier cap of the same project was also collapsed at Abdullahpur location early hours of Sunday what project office said for hitting by a speeding vehicle at around 2:45 am. But no injury was reported from it.
The Roads and Highways Department (RHD), the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA), and the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) are implementing the country’s first BRT project under four packages.
The project is being implemented to ease traffic movement between Gazipur and the airport, within the latest deadline of completion by December 2022. However, only 36% of the work was completed until December last year.
The 20km-long project is being executed under Tk42.68 billion Greater Dhaka Sustainable Urban Transport Project (GDSUTP-BRT Gazipur-Airport) since 2012.
