Dhaka city dwellers experienced heavy rainfall accompanied by lightning and gusty wind on Saturday morning. The low-lying areas in the capital and a number of alleys were inundated due to the rains, making it difficult for people who planned to go out in the morning.Although educational institutions and most of the offices remained closed for Durga Puja holiday the Hindu devotees who went out to visit temples faced trouble due to waterlogged and muddy roads. As some of the private offices remained open, the office goers suffer for lack of transports.The rains triggered by the active monsoon started around 6 am and continued till 7 am.Meteorologist of Bangladesh Meteorological Department Monowar Hossain said 20 mm rain was recorded in Dhaka from 6am Friday to 6 am onSaturday.The rainfall may decrease in 72 hours till Monday and then increase again, he said.

Gas supply will remain suspended for four hours on Thursday in different areas of the northern part of Dhaka city. Read: No gas supply for 8 hours in several Dhaka areas today According to an emergency public notice of Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited, the gas supply will remain off for all kinds of consumers at Uttarkhan , Dakkhinkhan, Uttara Sector 6 and Uttara Sector 8 from 10 am to 2 pm on Thursday for emergency line relocation works in the Sonargaon-Janapath Rail Crossing area. Read: Gas supply to remain off for 6 hours in parts of Dhaka Thursday Regretting the temporary inconveniences of its customers, the Tatas Gas authority also said that the consumers at the adjoining areas may experience low pressure in the gas supply.

Power supply was restored across Bangladesh after seven hours of blackout following the national power grid failure on Tuesday.   Electricity was back in all the areas of Dhaka and other districts by 9pm, Badruddoza Sumon, public relations officer of Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB), told UNB. Read: Power blackout triggers chaos in city fuel stations Power supply was restored in some parts of Dhaka city under Maniknagar and Hasnabad grid substations and also a good number of districts under Sylhet, Chattagram and Mymensingh by 7 pm, he added. He said the districts where power supply was fully restored by 7 pm include Tangail, Kishorganj, Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Manikganj, and all districts in Chattagram and Sylhet divisions. After the national power grid failed on Tuesday afternoon, power supply was restored in some Dhaka areas, including the president and prime minister’s official residences, around 5 pm. State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid had earlier hoped that power supply may fully be restored by 7 pm. National power transmission grid failed at 2:05 pm – causing blackouts across Bangladesh, except some parts of the north. Read: Power supply could be restored in Dhaka by 8pm, Ctg by 9pm: Palak According to officials at Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB), the transmission line tripped somewhere in the eastern part of the country, especially districts on the east of Jamuna river. Following the grid failure, all power plants tripped one after another and electricity supply went off in Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet, Barishal and Mymensingh divisions.

Consumers in the areas under Dhaka Electric Supply Company Limited (Desco) experienced load shedding for over three hours on Saturday while those in the areas under Dhaka Power Supply Company Limited (DPDC) saw no power cuts. According to official sources, a forced shutdown of a power plant in Ghorashal Power Station triggered such a huge load shedding in the Desco areas including Uttara, Gulshan, Baridhara, Bashundhara, Banani, Badda, Uttara khan, Dakkhin Khan, Agagaon, Mirpur, Kafrul, Kalayanpur, Khilkhet, Pallabi, Rupnagar and Tongi. “We had to go for more than three hours of load shedding in different spells as we have been receiving less supply than any other days due to the shutdown of a power station in Ghorashal”, said Kawsar Ameer Ali, managing director of Desco. He informed that Ghorashal power station is one of the major sources of power from which Desco receives power supply. “Following the shutdown of a power plant in Ghorashal station, power supply to Desco has come down to 750 MW on Saturday against the demand of 1038 MW,” the Desco chief executive told UNB. As a result, he said, the Desco had to go for about 278 MW of load shedding to manage the situation. Read: No load shedding in DPDC area this summer: Bikash Dewan Meanwhile, officials of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) informed that 365 MW unit -7 of the Ghorashal power station went out of order at 4:49 am on Saturday triggering a huge shortage in power supply. Shamim Hasan, BPDB director, public relations, however, said the power supply situation was better on Saturday as there was projection of scheduled load shedding of 1242 MW while the projected generation was 12,758 MW against a demand of 14,000 MW. The DPDC in a message through its official website noted that there is no scheduled load shedding in its area which supplies electricity mainly south, south-east, south-west and central parts of Dhaka city. The government started  daily one hour area-based load-shedding across Bangladesh from Tuesday in a bid to tackle the ongoing power crisis.

Two youths were killed in separate road accidents in the capital's Shahbagh and Shahjahanpur areas.The first accident occurred on Sunday night when a truck hit a bicycle in front of the Shahjahanpur ICD gate, leaving him dead on the spot.The deceased was identified as Al Amin 25, hailing from Nazirpur upazila of Pirojpur. Also read: Woman, her grandchild die in Gazipur road accidentOn information, police recovered the body and sent it to the Dhaka Medical College morgue for an autopsy on Monday, said Jamal Hossain, sub-inspector of Shahjahanpur Police Station.Police seized the truck and arrested the driver over the incident, he added.In another incident, a 28-year old man was killed when a speeding vehicle hit him in Matshaw Bhaban area of Shahbagh on Friday morning, leaving him seriously injured.He was rushed to the emergency department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital where the on-duty doctor declared him dead at 10 am while undergoing treatment. Also read: 3 killed in Cox's Bazar road accidentConfirming the matter, Inspector in charge of DMCH police outpost Md. Bachchu Mia said the body was kept in the hospital morgue for autopsy.

Environmental experts have stressed the need for effective measures to protect Dhaka city dwellers from air pollution during the winter when it usually turns unhealthy and hazardous. They suggest sweeping the city’s roads with water regularly, covering construction sites and materials, and stopping the movement of overloaded and unfit motor vehicles in the city. The experts blame the authorities concerned for their lack of seriousness as no visible steps are seen yet to improve the air quality, which worsens terribly from November to February. Ainun Nishat, Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research of BRAC University, says dust particles from construction sites, earth filing and roads, black smoke from overloaded motor vehicles and traditional brick kilns located around Dhaka are largely responsible for the unhealthy air quality at the time. Noting that traditional brick kilns are the major sources of air pollution, he advises the government to announce the brick manufactures as an industry in order to compel the traditional brick kilns to take environmental clearance. “If we declare the brick kilns as an industrial enterprise, they will have to take environmental clearance. If so, traditional brick kilns can’t go in operation in case of harming the environment,” Prof Nishat tells UNB. Read: Dhaka world's second-most polluted city He said water should be sprayed on the Dhaka roads every day during the dry season to control air pollution. “The air pollution is there in almost every country and they’ve effort to minimize it. But we don’t have any effort to control it in our country,” he adds. Prof Nishat says old motor vehicles having low efficiency burn huge petrol, which is also a major source of air pollution. So, the movement of such vehicles needs to be controlled, if we want to improve the air quality. Prof Dr Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder, the director of Centre for Atmospheric Pollution Studies (CAPS) of Stamford University Bangladesh, thinks no visible steps are seen yet to check air pollution, though it worsened seriously with the advent of the dry season y due to the rise of dust particles in its air amid absence of rain. Noting that there are directives from the High Court to spray waters in the city two times a day, he says there is lack of seriousness to implement the directives. “A coordinated enforcement of environmental rules and guidelines is needed to protect the city’s dwellers from the unhealthy air,” notes Dr Majumder. He says the authorities should have sincere and firm conviction to prevent industries, brick kilns and construction sites from polluting the environment. MA Matin, Executive Vice president of Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa), says the air pollution now is the major concern for public health as it claims the highest number of lives in the country replacing water pollution. “No visible steps are seen from the authorities concerned to check dust in the city’s air,” he says, adding that there are some 10,000 brick kilns located around Dhaka city. The environmental activist says the government should take a tough stance to check air pollution by ensuring the construction sites and materials are covered, effluent treatment plants in every industrial units and modernizing the brick kilns. Read: Can Dhaka improve its air quality? The Dhaka’s air quality terribly deteriorates during the winter particularly January-March every year. In the January-March 2021, the air quality was hazardous for 12 days, very unhealthy for 58 days, unhealthy for 19 days and unhealthy for sensitive groups in one day in Dhaka, one of the most polluted cities in the world. In the last six years (2016-2021), the average daily AQI score was 248.2 in January, 190 in February and 184.2 in March, according to the analysis of CAPS of Stamford University Bangladesh.  Besides, the average daily AQI is also high in every November and December. In the last six years, the average daily’s AQI score was 176.9 in November.   The air quality with AQI score 300+ is considered hazardous, the score 200-300 very unhealthy, the score 151-200 unhealthy, the score 101-150 unhealthy for sensitive groups (like children and pregnant women), the score 51-100 as moderate and the score less than 50 as good.   Air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year, largely as a result of increased mortality from stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections, as per the World Health Organization (WHO). 

The densely populated capital of Bangladesh continues to dominate the list of world cities with the worst air quality.

Association of Koreans in Bangladesh donates food, clothing, and hygiene items to Dhaka's underprivileged population.

Dhaka is home to 21 million people – most of whom live below the poverty line.

Residents of the capital have been struggling with overhead cables for decades which is gradually increasing with time.