Death toll in Bangladesh earthquake rises to 6
Dhaka (PTI): At least six people were killed and several injured as a massive earthquake of magnitude 5.7 jolted Dhaka and parts of the country on Friday, damaging buildings, causing fires at several places and sending panic among residents.
Three people were killed in Dhaka, while the fourth died in the suburban river port town of Narayanganj, officials said, as local media reported injuries to at least 50 people across the country.
The other two deaths were reported from Narsingdi, where the epicentre was located some 10 kilometres beneath the surface.
The epicentre of the quake that struck at 10:38 am (local time) was at Narsigndi on the northeastern outskirts of Dhaka at a depth of 10 kilometres, Bangladesh’s meteorology department said. The place is around 13 kilometres east of the seismic centre in Dhaka’s Agargaon area.
Dhaka’s deputy police commissioner Mallik Ahsan Uddin Sami said, quoting the fire service, that at least three people were killed after a railing, bamboo scaffolding and debris of a five-storey building fell on them at Old Dhaka’s Armanitola area.
A bystander was critically wounded at the scene in the crowded neighbourhood, he said.
Sami confirmed that one of the deceased was a medical student who was there to buy meat along with his mother. She is critically wounded, requiring an emergency surgery, he added.
Local media reports said one of the three dead was an eight-year-old who had not been identified.
The fourth death was reported from Narayanganj where a newborn baby on her mother’s lap died as they were walking near a wall that collapsed as the tremor hit.
In Sutrapur's Swamibagh area, also located in old Dhaka, an eight-storey building was reported to have leaned against another structure following the earthquake, while at the Kalabagan area, a seven-storey building looked tilted, though fire officials reported it remained structurally sound.
A fire broke out at a residence in Dhaka’s posh Baridhara area soon after the tremor hit, but the firefighters could not immediately confirm if it was linked to the earthquake.
Another fire at a residential building was reported from the Gazaria area of suburban Munshiganj, while the fire service responded immediately to douse the blaze.
The Prothom Alo newspaper said the tremor wounded over 50 people in three districts around Dhaka.
Experts have long said the risk of major quakes was high in Bangladesh because of its location on active tectonic plate boundaries, with many of them saying a major earthquake is inevitable, though it could be decades away.
Earthquake expert Professor Mehedi Ahmed Ansary of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) said a tremor with a magnitude of 6 could collapse most structures in the country.
“This tremor (on Friday) is an alarm bell for Bangladesh,” Ansary said.
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Karnataka Minister urges Centre to launch Bengaluru–Vijayapura express train
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka Infrastructure Development Minister M B Patil has urged the Centre to launch an express train service between Bengaluru and Vijayapura.
The demand comes following the completion of the 9.60-km double-line railway work between Alamatti and Wandal, which has been open for traffic since March 25, the Minister's office said in a statement on Wednesday.
"He has written a letter regarding this on March 30 to Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Minister V Somanna," it said.
In the letter, Patil stated that the Alamatti–Wandal section, part of the Gadag–Hotgi double-line project, has now been completed. During an earlier meeting, it was mentioned that once this work was finished, an express train between Bengaluru and Vijayapura could be introduced. He has now requested that this be given priority.
He highlighted that thousands of people from Vijayapura and Bagalkote districts travel daily to Bengaluru for education, healthcare, administrative work, and business, and this train service would greatly benefit them.
According to him, currently, the train journey between the two cities takes about 15 hours, which is inconvenient.
He stressed the need to reduce this travel time to around 10 hours.
The minister also requested that trains departing from Bengaluru be given a limited stops upto Hubballi, and that trains proceeding to Vijayapura should be routed via the Hubballi and Gadag bypass lines.
