Hundreds of people from all walks of life joined the human chain.
They demanded taking necessary measures against river erosion in a four-kilometre area from Docchimuddir intersection to Sluicegate area.
They said the Kurigram-Chilmari Road, Mogolbasha union parishad complex, market, three high schools, four government schools, a madrasa, arable land and embankment are on the verge of collapse as a huge portion of the dam has already been devoured by the river.
Erosion has been prevalent in Bangladesh, a land crisscrossed by rivers. Between 1973 and 2017, the Padma, the Meghna, and the Jamuna engulfed more than 160,000 hectares of land, according to statistics provided by the UN. The area is roughly equivalent to five times the land mass of Dhaka.
The Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services, a government think-tank, has forecast that erosion could eat up another 4,500 hectares by the end of 2020 and could potentially displace another 45,000 people.