Two tanker-wagons that fell off a bridge pulled up from Boalkhali canal

The two tanker-wagons that fell into a canal in Chittagong’s Boalkhali 10 days ago when a rail bridge collapsed have been recovered.

Bangladesh Railway officials expect to resume operation of trains on the Bridge-24 on the Chittagong-Dohazari route on Tuesday.

BR East Division Chief Mechanical Engineer Harun-or Rashid told bdnews24.com on Monday afternoon, they had pulled up the second wagon that had fallen into the canal.

He said the tilted train engine would be retrieved on Tuesday.

The two wagons had fallen off the bridge between Gomdandi and Dhalghat at Boalkhali on Jun 19 when eight wagons of furnace oil were being sent to the Dohazari power plant at Dohazari from Chittagong city.

Oil leaked from the sunken tank-wagons.

Railway officials said the bridge had been identified as ‘risky’ nine years ago.

Bangladesh Railway salvaged the two wagons with the help of a private firm – Mainuddin Salvage.

Daily production time of the 100-megawatt power plant has been cut down to three hours from 10 hours due to a shortage of furnace oil.

Railway officials, however, expect furnace oil transportation to the power plant to resume on Tuesday.

BR East Divisional Manager Mofizur Rahman told bdnews24.com the damaged tracks had been repaired and were ready for train operation.

“Passenger trains won’t run on the tracks right now. We’ll try to supply oil to Dohazari plant tomorrow (Tuesday),” he said.