City dwellers suffer due to Sitrang impacts

Staff Reporter :
The incessant rainfall accompanied by gusty winds due to the cyclonic storm ‘Sitrang’ caused immense sufferings of the people in the capital on Monday.
Throughout the day, there was a shortage of vehicles, especially the public transports, in the main thoroughfares of the capital and its adjoining areas.
Due to the construction works of the Mega projects like Metrorail and BRT project in Gazipur to Airport, people faced heavy traffic congestion as most of the roads in these areas were rundown.
The heavy rainfall causes water logging, a common scenario in most of the streets in the capital, whenever it rains for a short time.
As a result, the people especially office goers, workers and day-labourers struggled much to reach their destinations amid the rainfall, which reduced the public transports throughout the day.
Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded 28mm of rain in nine hours till 12:00 noon.
Shortages of buses and the torrential rains forced people to hire auto-rickshaws and rickshaws to reach their destinations. Even the number of private vehicles was low on the streets.
In order to avoid the rainfall and dirty waters on the streets, people had to hire rickshaws at a high fare. The rickshaw pullers and CNG drivers charged extra fares. Otherwise, they were reluctant to carry the passengers.
Finding no other alternatives, people had to spend much for the fare when their expenditure was already high due to economic slowdown.
On the other hand, the day labourers and low-come group people had passed an idle time as most of them work as porters to carry goods to different destinations or load and unload goods in the big markets in the capital.
Traffic police said the overall traffic situation was normal in the capital except some places where construction works were going on.
As most of the educational institutions were closed due to Hindu festival Shyama Puja, the streets were also free of their movement.
Following the weather report, the city dwellers have been expecting fine weather on Tuesday as their sufferings due to incessant rain will come to an end.