Panchagarh Express recovered after 7 hours, trains at Kamalapur set off 2 hours late

The train derailed around midnight on Thursday as it left Dhaka’s Kamalapur Station

The Panchagarh Express, which derailed around midnight on Thursday soon after it left Dhaka’s Kamalapur Railway Station, has been recovered, restoring Dhaka’s train links.

Rail officials say no one was injured in the accident.

The Panchagarh Express was the last train to leave Dhaka at night and trains in the morning were delayed for two hours, they said.

Five carriages of the Panchagarh Express derailed soon after it set off from Kamalapur Station around 12:30am on Friday, according to Arif Mohiuddin, Dhaka divisional railway manager.

The train had been moving very slowly at the time, so passengers were unharmed, he said. After seven hours of effort, the train was finally recovered around 7:30am.

Passengers have reported delays and cancellations on many railway groups on Facebook, but Arif said no trains had been cancelled. He acknowledged, however, that some trains had been delayed.

Around 9:30am he said that the Panchagarh Express was the last overnight train scheduled to leave Kamalapur Railway Station. The next trains were set to depart around 6am on Friday. That first set of trains set off at 8pm instead. The first train to depart was the Prabhati Express, followed by the Sonar Bangla. The Teesta Express set off soon after that.

Asked about the cause of the rail accident, the railway official said a committee has been formed to investigate.

The Panchagarh Express, heading from Dhaka to Panchagarh, derailed under the Khilgaon Flyover, according to the Dhaka Railway Police Station’s officer on duty.

Train passenger Md Ataullah said that he and two friends had boarded the train on their way to an event in Panchagarh’s Tentulia. They waited until dawn but eventually went home as they had no assurance of being able to resume their trip.

Two or three minutes after the train left the station, some parts of it fell off the tracks, he said. As the train was moving slowly, it soon came to a halt after a sharp, metallic scraping sound.