15 Killed After Overloaded Truck Flips into Ditch

At least 15 people were killed in a horrifying highway crash in Bangladesh after an overloaded truck carrying iron rods and hitchhikers overturned into a roadside ditch before dawn.

The deadly accident happened around 5:00 a.m. local time Monday, May 25, on a major highway in central Bangladesh, near the eastern end of the Jamuna Bridge.

Authorities said the truck had been traveling along the Dhaka-Tangail highway when the driver lost control near Tangail, a city more than 50 miles northwest of the capital, Dhaka.

The vehicle was reportedly packed with iron rods and extra passengers, many of whom were hitchhikers trying to get home for the Eid al-Adha holiday.

Police said the passengers were traveling from the southern part of the country toward the northwest to reunite with their families for the major Islamic festival, which begins Tuesday, May 26.

What should have been a holiday journey home turned into a nightmare.

Local police chief Fuad Hossain told the Associated Press that the truck was carrying hitchhikers when the driver lost control. Officials later said the vehicle overturned into a ditch near the Jamuna Bridge, Bangladesh’s second-longest bridge.

Another officer, Muhammad Shamsul Alam Sarkar, told The Daily Star that many of the victims were hawkers who sold plastic goods and worked in the town of Chowmuhani.

They were reportedly heading home to celebrate Eid with loved ones when disaster struck.

Syed Riaz Uddin, an executive engineer at the Jamuna Bridge site office of the Bangladesh Bridge Authority, told the outlet that officials believe the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Emergency crews initially found four bodies at the crash scene. Nine survivors were pulled from the wreckage and rushed to Tangail General Hospital.

But the true horror was revealed only after a police wrecker lifted the overturned truck.

Authorities found 11 more bodies crushed underneath the heavy iron rods.

Locals joined rescue workers in a desperate effort to remove the rods and recover the victims, a process that reportedly took more than an hour.

At least 10 people were injured in the crash.

The tragedy is the latest deadly road disaster in Bangladesh, where thousands are killed in traffic accidents each year. Officials and safety groups have long blamed dangerous roads, reckless or untrained drivers, overloaded vehicles and weak enforcement of traffic rules.

According to the Asian Transport Observatory, the World Health Organization estimated that road crashes killed 32,000 people in Bangladesh in 2021 alone.

The country was also rocked by another major tragedy in March, when at least 26 people, including five children, died after a bus crashed into the Padma River while approaching a ferry.

For the families of the victims in Monday’s crash, a holiday week meant for celebration has now become a time of unimaginable grief.