Published : 16 Aug 2026, 04:28 AM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:33 AM
“He was supposed to come home for his government job exam. Instead, my son came home in a coffin.”
Monowara Begum broke down as she spoke of her 23-year-old son Rana Mia, whose hopes of a public job were cut short by a toxic gas leak.
Rana died at a shipbreaking yard in Chattogram’s Sitakunda.
On Saturday afternoon, an ambulance carried his body back to his village home, where a family had been waiting for him to return alive.
In one corner of the courtyard, his father, sharecropper Harun Or Rashid, wept at the sight of his son's body.
"We were a struggling family. The boy sent money home every month, and that's how we somehow kept the household running. Who'll give us money now?" he said.
Two of the nine workers killed at the Sitakunda shipbreaking yard hailed from Gaibandha.
Rana was one of them, from West Kuptola village in Sadar Upazila.
Harun said Rana had recently applied for a post of office assistant at the Gaibandha deputy commissioner's office.
The written exam was scheduled for Aug 21. Rana was due home on Saturday to prepare for it. He came home instead as a body.
His elder brother Monarul Islam brought Rana's body from Chattogram, reaching the village at 10am.
As the body arrived, the surrounding area grew heavy with the wails of grieving relatives.
Neighbours crowded around the house for one last glimpse. After Zuhr prayers, Rana was laid to rest at the family graveyard following his funeral.
Monarul said the three siblings, two brothers and a sister, had grown up together.
Rana passed his Secondary School Certificate from West Kuptola High School in 2021 and his Higher Secondary Certificate from Sadullapur Degree College in 2023.
He then took up work as a labourer at Ferdous Steel, a factory on Station Road in Sitakunda's Bhatiari Union, to help support the struggling family.
Monarul himself works at another company in Chattogram, where he lives with his wife. Their only sister, identified only as Pinki, is married.
The same incident in Chattogram also claimed the life of Khokon Mia, 26, of Sundarganj Upazila's Dhopadanga Union.
His father sharecropper Rana Mia has two sons and a daughter.
The elder son Ujjal Mia works in farming, while the middle child, a daughter, is married.
Khokon was the youngest.
Khokon's wife works at a private company in Dhaka, where she lives with their 2-year-old child.
He had taken up work at the Chattogram shipbreaking company around six months earlier.
His body, too, reached home by ambulance that morning. After his Namaz-e-Janaza, or funeral prayers, that afternoon, he was laid to rest at the family graveyard.
Nine workers died on Friday morning after toxic gas spread from a gas cylinder aboard a scrap vessel at a shipbreaking yard.
The incident occurred at Ferdous Steel Ship Breaking Yard on Station Road in Bhatiari Union.
The dead were identified as Motiur Rahman, 19, Sunny Joladas, 23, Palash Joladas, 35, Habibur Rahman, 51, Mohammad Mansur, 55, Nasir Uddin, 51, Abdul Alim, 36, Rana, and Khokon.
Sunny, Palash, Habibur, Mansur and Nasir were residents of Bhatiari, with Mansur and Nasir being brothers.
Khokon and Rana hailed from Gaibandha district, while Alim was from Pabna district.
