Sunamganj sees 930km of its roads devastated

Communications on roads in Sunamganj have become extremely difficult after three back-to-back floods destroyed about 930 kilometres of roads in the district.

With many parts of a same road washed away, commuting as well as transporting of all sorts of goods and essentials are increasingly getting hazardous and costly, said Jamilur Rahman, a trader from Sunamganj town.

Oftentimes, people have to disembark and unload goods from a vehicle to cross the damaged portion of a road and find a new transport on the other side.

This situation is putting lives of critically ill patients in danger, he also said. 

In Tahirpur upazila, Shaktiarkhal Bazar resident Islam Uddin said boats have replaced motorised vehicles on a 200-meter-long section of Sunamganj-Tahirpur road near Shaktiarkhal Bazar.

While the damaged network of roads left people in a number of upazilas cut off from the district headquarters, it rendered many vehicle drivers in the area jobless, said Mousabbir Mia, a car driver by profession.

Contacted, Mahbub Alam, executive engineer of Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) in Sunamganj, said the first wave of the floods hit Sunamganj between June 25 and June 29. The second wave struck on July 9 and the third one on July 20.

The three floods in two months' time have caused extensive damage to the communications network in all upazilas of Sunamganj, by completely destroying 22 vital roads and severely damaging 24 different bridges and culverts.

The estimation of damage on the 900 kilometres, out of total 4,795 kilometres, of road in the district stands at Tk 450 crore.

As many as four upazilas -- Tahirpur, Bishwambharpur, Jamalganj and Chhatak -- are now detached from Sunamganj district town due to breaches at various points of road network in the district.

The LGED was working relentlessly to temporarily restore the roads and he hoped to open the roads to public within a few days.

They would send a permanent repair proposal to the ministry once the complete account of the damage is available and they would start the permanent repair work soon after necessary budget allocation is approved by the ministry, the executive engineer added.   

Zahirul Islam, executive engineer of Roads and Highways Department (RHD), said out of 228 km of roads maintained by the RHD in the district, 30 km of it has sustained Tk 30 crore worth of damage due to the floods.

RHD was also working on to maintain communications by doing temporary repair work before an approval for permanent restoration work is received from the ministry, he also said.