Madaripur, Mar 19: At least 19 people were killed and over a dozen injured as a bus fell into a roadside ditch at Kutubpur under Shibpur upazila in Madaripur district on Sunday morning.
The accident took place minutes after 7:30am on Sunday, said Madaripur Highway Police assistant superintendent Ahsan Habib.
However 17 of the 19 victims who were killed in the Madaripur bus accident were identified this afternoon.
The 17 dead are: Sweety, Md Karim Sheikh, Afsana Mimi, Masud, Abdullah Al Mamun, Md Ismail, 38, Md Hedayet Mia Bahar, 42, Farhad Shikder, Anadi Mondol, Mostak Ahmed, Md Sajib, Chinmoy Prosonno Ghosh, Mohadev Kumar Sadukha, Md Ashfak Jahan Linkon, Rashed Sarder, supervisor of the bus Minhaj Biswas, and Sheikh Yakub Ali, a madrasa teacher.
Minhaj and Sheikh Yakub Ali died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Among the dead, 14 were handed over to their families.
Shibchar Highway Police Station officer-in-charge Abu Nayeem Md Mofazzal Huq said that the Dhaka-bound bus of Emad Paribahan from Khulna met the fatal accident on Dhaka-Khulna highway at Kutubpur and left 17 dead on the spot and over one dozen injured.
The bodies are being kept at Shibchar Upazila Health Complex. Several of the injured are also being treated at the same facility.
As the number of fatalities from the bus accident has raised to at least 19, the family members of the victims have begun to rush to the hospital in search of their loved ones.
On information, police and fire service and civil defence rescuers rushed to the spot, rescued the injured ones and sent them to hospital for treatment, he said.
He said that a number of injured people were sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for better treatment and they came to know that two died there.
DMCH police outpost in-charge Bachchu Mia said that the hospital received a total of 10 injured patients from Madaripur until noon and two of them died.
He said that five of the victims were in critical condition.
Shibchar highway police station officials said that they recovered the bodies from the spot and would take appropriate measures to identify them and handing them over to their family members after completing the legal procedure.
