By Staff Correspondent, Dhaka – At least seven members of a family were killed in a road accident in the eastern Bangladeshi district of Noakhali, police said on Wednesday.
The accident occurred in the morning when a microbus carrying 12 passengers fell into a roadside canal in Alaiapur of Begumganj upazila, located more than 130 kilometers southeast of the capital, Dhaka.
Local Highway police officer Mobarak Hossain said seven among the passengers died on the scene. The others were being treated at a nearby hospital.
He said the vehicle fell into the ditch as the driver lost control of the steering. Those who died mostly drowned in the water. Only five people managed to escape from the water.
The vehicle was carrying family members of an expatriate Bangladeshi living in Oman. The accident occurred while they were travelling from Dhaka to neighbouring Laxmupur district to bring home the expatriate, according to the survivors.
Three more people were killed in a different road accident in the north-eastern district of Sunamganj, newsnext correspondent reported from the scene.
The accident occurred in Bahadurpur area on the Sylhet-Sunamganj regional highway at about noontime as a passenger bus and a three-wheeler autorickshaw collided head-on.
Police said three passengers, two of whom are students, of the autorickshaw died on the scene. Two others who suffered injuries were taken to a local hospital.
Reckless driving was blamed for the accident.
(This story was updated with minor correction in the Noakhali accident, and adds a separate mishap in the north-eastern district of Sunamgnaj)
