Rafiul Islam’s Last Morning: Seconds of shaking, a family shattered

Abu Jakir :

On most Fridays, Nusrat Begum tried to finish the household chores early. Her son, Rafiul Islam Rafi, a calm, soft-spoken student of Sir Salimullah Medical College in Dhaka, often joined her if he didn’t have class. This Friday felt no different. They stepped out together around mid-morning, heading toward Noyon’s meat shop in Kashaituli, where fresh buffalo meat had just arrived.

It was supposed to be a simple errand — a walk, a bit of bargaining, and then lunch at home.
At 10:38 am, mother and son were standing quietly in front of the shop, waiting their turn. Around them, dozens of people crowded under the shade of the building, chatting, some choosing cuts of meat while others waited with empty shopping bags. Nothing suggested that the ground beneath their feet would soon betray them.

The first jolt came like a sudden shiver through the concrete. People froze, confused, then the earth heaved violently. The old building above the shop groaned. Before anyone could run, the railing along the roof gave way and crashed down on the crowd below.
Screams followed. Dust filled the narrow lane.

When the shaking stopped, locals rushed forward. Among those who ran down from the swaying building was Rownak, a student living on an upper floor. He heard the thud of falling debris before he heard the cries. In the alley, he found several people lying injured — a child, a few men, a woman collapsed over her shopping basket. He helped lift them onto rickshaws and vans, shouting at drivers to hurry toward Mitford Hospital.

Rafi and his mother were among them. By the time they reached Sir Salimullah Medical College Mitford Hospital, Rafi was unconscious. Doctors tried — but soon after, they declared the 20-year-old dead. Nusrat, severely injured, was admitted with head trauma.

By early afternoon, the corridor outside the morgue had become a gathering place for grief. One of Rafi’s classmates, Imtiaz Uddin Nadim, sat on the cold floor, his face buried in his hands. Earlier that morning he had seen a photo in a Facebook group — a boy lying in the street, blood at his mouth. Only after zooming in did he recognise his friend.

Another classmate, Apu, stood nearby repeating the same sentence, as if trying to convince himself: “He was such a gentle boy… We can’t accept this. We just can’t.”

Rafi’s family came in waves of disbelief. His elder sister rushed to the hospital as soon as she heard the news.

Their father, working in Dinajpur, struggled to comprehend how a morning errand with his wife had turned into a nightmare. The family had moved to Bangshal so Rafi could stay near the campus; even though he had a seat in the dormitory, he preferred living with his mother and sister.

Doctors later said Nusrat was out of immediate danger. A CT scan showed no major internal injury. But she had not yet been told that her son — the son who held her hand on the way to the market — would not return home with her.

Rafi was not the only one lost that morning. Among the dead were 48-year-old Abdur Rahim and his 12-year-old son, Mehrab, residents of Suritola. They had also been out shopping when the building’s railing collapsed. In Narayanganj’s Rupganj, a 10-month-old baby girl, Fatema, died when her home collapsed. And in Narsingdi’s Palash, 75-year-old Kazem Ali Bhuiyan was killed after the wall of his mud house caved in.

What struck many was how sudden it all was. The quake — moderate at 5.7 on the Richter scale — lasted only seconds, with its epicenter in Madhabdi. But in those seconds, lives ended, families broke, and a city already burdened by ageing buildings revealed again how fragile its structures truly are.

By midday, the toll nationwide had risen to five. Hundreds were injured across Dhaka, Narsingdi, and Gazipur. Interim Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus issued a message of condolence, acknowledging the lives cut short.

Inside the Mitford morgue, the cold stillness stood in stark contrast to the chaos outside. Rafi, who only hours earlier had walked out with a shopping list, now lay under a white sheet. His classmates lingered nearby, not ready to leave, unable to accept that a life so full of promise had been ended by a piece of falling concrete.

Bangshal grew quieter as the afternoon passed. The meat shop shuttered. The alley was cordoned off. The broken railing lay where it had fallen, dust settled on its jagged edges — a mute witness to the ordinary morning that turned, in seconds, into tragedy.

For Nusrat Begum, recovering alone in a hospital bed, the day that began with a mother-son outing would be remembered for the void it left behind. The pot at home waited for the meat they never bought. The lunch they planned would remain uncooked. And the son she walked beside that morning would never walk through their door again.