Road accidents during the recent Eid-ul-Azha holiday rush claimed 273 lives in just 15 days, even though long-haul buses were operating for just eight of those days, according to the Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Shamiti (Passenger Welfare Association). At least 240 road crashes occurred during the July 14- 28 period, BJKS revealed, while presenting its road accident report-2021 at a press briefing on Friday. Members of the road accidents monitoring cell of the organisation prepared the report collecting information from widely published and trustworthy national, regional, daily newspapers and online portals over the 15 days covered. The report also said 447 people were injured in the accidents that occurred at a time when lakhs of people hit the road to go home and celebrate the Eid festival with their families -home being wherever one's family may be permanently resident, either village or district away from urban centres. The report also stated that among the deceased, 27 were women, 17 children, 53 pedestrians, 16 transport workers, and 87 drivers.    Read: 7 die in separate accidents in Bagerhat BJKS also tallied the types of accident most prevalent. They find that roughly a quarter (25.8%) are head-on collisions, and even more overwhelmingly, over 44%  feature pedestrians struck or overrun by vehicles. A little over 18% are cases of the driver losing control and falling into a ditch.  Like other years, motorcycles were the most lethal form of transport, recording 93 deaths in 87 accidents. This accounts for 36.25% of the total accidents and 34.06 % of the total deaths recorded.

Eid-ul-Azha, the festival of sacrifice, is being celebrated in Bangladesh as the country grapples with the Covid-19 outbreak and floods inflict untold sufferings to hundreds of thousands of people.

The government officials including officials of private and autonomous organisations have been asked not to leave their work stations during the upcoming Eid-ul-Azha holiday to contain the spread of coronavirus in the country.