MR Amin, Chattogram

About 13 kilometers of the railway track in the eastern part of the Chattogram Railway has been damaged due to severe floods recently.

Railway officials said that it may take more than Tk 6.5 crore to repair this railway track and make it suitable for train movement. They also said that they will take initiative to repair the damaged railway track immediately.

Train movement was stopped for four days as the railway track was submerged in about 56 kilometers of flood. As many as 56 kilometers of railways were submerged on four routes in the eastern region. However, the 7 km railway line from Fazilpur to Feni via Kalidah on the Chittagong-Dhaka railway has suffered the most damage. The concerned engineers said that this 7 km railway track has been completely destroyed.

According to the field level picture of the railways affected by the flood, according to the calculations of the divisional engineering office of the railway eastern region, about 56 kilometers of railways on the Chittagong-Dhaka, Chittagong-Nazirhat, Chittagong-Cox's Bazar, Laksam-Noakhali route were submerged in water. Out of this, 15 km of the 49 km Laksam-Noakhali railway is still under water, said the concerned engineer of the divisional engineering office of the Eastern Railway. 20 to 25 km of the Chittagong-Dhaka railway from Fenir Muhuriganj to Gunwati was submerged. Among them, 6 to 7 km railway line from Fazilpur-Kalidah to Feni (Chittagong to Dhaka line) has been completely destroyed. This railway line was submerged under water for four days.

The stone-sleepers of the railway line are often damaged. This 7 km railway line has to be redone. Meanwhile, between Chittagong-Cox's Bazar railway line in Janalihat, Patia and Kanchannagar area, about 1 km of railway line was submerged in water. The engineer said that this railway line has been damaged. Meanwhile, 5 kilometers of railway line was submerged in water at the end of Nazirhat on the Sholshahar-Nazirhat route. Engineer Rafi Md. Imtiaz Hossain said that 15 km of the 49 km Laksam-Noakhali railway line was under water until (yesterday Thursday). The damage to this railway line due to water inundation is yet to be ascertained.

Due to the inundation of railway lines at various places including Feni, Nazirhat, railway communication with Chittagong was stopped from noon on August 22. Two trains left Chittagong railway station this morning but could not reach their destination. After this, the authorities announced the suspension of train movement. After three days last Sunday, train movement started on Chabi route. Then on Monday night train movement started on Dhaka-Chittagong route through one railway line between two railway lines and on Chittagong-Cox's Bazar route.

Trains are running from Sylhet and Chandpur route from next day Tuesday. Although trains have started running on all routes, the rail communication between Chittagong and the whole country is still not normal.