Two Bangladeshis among eight injured in attack on Dammam airport

Twelve people were killed when a passenger bus and a sand-laden truck collided head-on on the Bonpara-Pabna highway in Natore early on Tuesday, and police say the bus had been running without a valid fitness certificate since May.

The crash happened at about 4:15am at Sarkarpur in Baraigram upazila, near the Bonpara police investigation centre. Nine people died at the scene and three more died later while being treated, taking the toll to 12, according to accounts from The Daily Star and Bangla Tribune. At least 25 people were injured, Bangla Tribune reported, while The Daily Star put the number receiving treatment in Natore and Rajshahi hospitals at 30 or more.

The bus belonged to RP Special Paribahan and was carrying about 40 passengers from Barguna to Chapainawabganj, a journey of more than 500 kilometres that it began around 6:00pm and was due to finish around 6:00am. The truck was taking sand from Panchagarh to Jhenaidah. The two vehicles met at Sarkarpur before dawn.

The dead included the truck's driver and the bus's supervisor. Police said the supervisor was at the wheel when the crash happened; passengers alleged that the driver had been asleep, a claim the owner rejected. A child was also among those killed. The injured were taken to hospitals in Natore, Baraigram and Rajshahi, and the bodies were handed to families after identification.

Police filed a case at Baraigram police station on Tuesday night under the Road Transport Act, naming the drivers of both vehicles as accused but without recording their names. The case was filed by Sub-Inspector Akbar Hossain of Bonpara Highway Police after no relative of a dead or injured passenger came forward to lodge a complaint, and it will be investigated by highway police. Officers said the drivers would be identified and brought under the law.

The condition of the bus is now central to the investigation. Md Alamgir Hossain, officer-in-charge of Bonpara Highway Police Station, said the vehicle's fitness certificate expired in May and that the matter had been passed to the district administration's inquiry committee. "We are investigating how it was allowed to run on this long route for so long without proper certification," he said.

The owner, Md Mintu Ali, said he bought the Ashok Leyland bus about a year ago and first rented it out for tours and picnics. After obtaining a route permit, he began operating it on the Barguna-Chapainawabganj route about four months ago. He said he had applied to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority to update the vehicle's documents but kept it on the road because of delays in the process. The Daily Star said it could not reach BRTA officials to verify that account.

Mintu denied that the driver had fallen asleep, saying two drivers were aboard and that the crash was the result of a momentary lapse in concentration. The seven-member inquiry committee, headed by Natore Additional District Magistrate Md Abul Hayat, visited the site on Wednesday. Hayat confirmed that the bus had been operating without fitness clearance for five months and said the panel would check all papers, official documents and safety requirements before drawing conclusions.

"Our preliminary assessment suggests the driver may have been drowsy, leading to a loss of control," Hayat said. "We will reveal all findings regarding the cause of the accident after the final investigation concludes." He said the committee would also examine the dispute over who was actually driving at the time of the collision.

The crash has also brought promises of help for the families. Whip Ruhul Kuddus Talukder Dulu, the MP for Natore Sadar, visited the scene with fellow MP Abdul Aziz, Deputy Commissioner Sumoni Akter and Superintendent of Police Shariful Haque. Dulu said the government would give Tk 1 lakh to each bereaved family on behalf of the prime minister, and that work would be taken up to widen the Bonpara-Pabna highway to reduce the risk of such collisions.

Several questions remain unanswered. Police have not said whether anyone has been arrested, and the inquiry committee has not set a date for its report. It is still unclear who was driving the bus, whether the BRTA took any action over the expired certificate, and whether the case will proceed against named individuals. Transport specialists have long warned that a single driver on a 500-kilometre overnight route is a safety risk, and that informal handovers between drivers on long-haul services make crashes more likely.

The Bonpara-Pabna stretch is part of the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway, one of the country's busiest long-distance corridors. The case has renewed attention on how vehicles with out-of-date papers can keep running, a question the inquiry committee says it will address in its findings.

Four more people died of dengue in the 24 hours to 8am on Thursday, taking Bangladesh's death toll from the disease this year to 368, according to figures from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). Another 1,512 patients were admitted to hospitals across the country in the same period, bringing the number of cases recorded since January to 118,502.

Two of the four deaths were reported in Mymensingh division, and one each in the areas covered by Dhaka South City Corporation and Dhaka North City Corporation, the DGHS data shows. Hospitals discharged 1,455 patients during the 24 hours, taking total recoveries this year to 112,111.

The figures continue a steep climb. By 22 October last year, Bangladesh had recorded 62,367 dengue cases and 255 deaths, according to the DGHS numbers cited by Bangla Tribune. This year's caseload is therefore close to double the level of a year ago, and the death toll is 113 higher.

The monthly pattern shows how the outbreak has accelerated. Dengue killed five people between January and May, 13 in June, 36 in July and 43 in August. September was the deadliest month so far, with 148 deaths. By subtracting those monthly totals from the annual figure, October has already accounted for about 123 deaths in its first three weeks, putting the month on course to pass September's toll if the current pace holds.

The pressure is concentrated in Dhaka's public hospitals. At Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital on Thursday, the men's dengue ward had 38 patients in 50 beds, while the women's ward had 23 patients in 41 beds after 18 people were discharged by 4pm, staff told Bangla Tribune during a visit.

A nurse on duty in the men's ward said the space is normally so tight that there is no room left to stand, and that the beds had emptied slightly over the past two or three days because of the Durga Puja holidays. The hospital has set aside ward 420 for men and ward 424 for women, with separate dengue corners in other wards when those two fill up.

Staff say the workload stretches well beyond the designated dengue rooms. One employee, who asked not to be named, said the hospital's large wards can hold between 170 and 250 patients with only two nurses on duty, while the dengue wards are staffed by one doctor and three nurses. She said a single new patient needs at least 30 to 40 minutes of work, from saline and laboratory tests to blood arrangements and instructions from doctors.

Patients and relatives described a service that is coping but strained. Mohiuddin Sarkar brought his brother-in-law from Narsingdi on Thursday after a laboratory test there came back positive. He said they found a bed without difficulty and that treatment and staff conduct in the dengue ward were good. Humayun Kabir Swapan, who had been at the hospital for four days with his younger brother, also said the dengue ward was reasonably managed, but complained about conditions elsewhere in the building, including too few lifts and long queues for tickets at the emergency department.

Dengue is spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which breed in standing water around homes and bite mainly during the day. Bangladesh now records cases through much of the year, with the numbers usually rising during and after the monsoon, and Dhaka's public hospitals take many of the patients sent from districts with fewer treatment facilities.

Several things remain unclear. The daily DGHS bulletin gives national totals but no district-level breakdown, and neither of the reports published on Thursday said how many dengue patients are currently being treated in hospital nationwide. There is also no public information in those figures about which dengue serotype is dominant this season, which matters because repeat infection with a different serotype raises the risk of severe illness. Suhrawardy hospital authorities did not comment in the Bangla Tribune report.

What happens next will be visible in the daily 8am update. The coming days will show whether the dip in admissions that nurses linked to the Puja holidays lasts once the holidays end, and whether the death toll keeps rising at September's pace. The practical advice is unchanged: clear standing water, use mosquito protection, and test early when a fever does not settle.

The outbreak has already far exceeded last year's, and the hospitals that treat it are running with the same staff and the same buildings. Whether October ends better or worse than September depends on numbers that will be published one morning at a time.