Daulatdia accident survivor Rajib Sardar recounts terrifying escape from sinking bus

He says the water current helped him to climb out

Rajib Sardar cannot clearly explain exactly how he escaped the sinking bus at the Daulatdia Ferry Terminal, but he recalls that a strong rush of water through a window helped him get out.

On Thursday, the 27-year-old recounted his near-death ordeal at Rajbari Sadar Hospital.

The Showhardo Paribahan bus, which sank in the Padma River on Wednesday, had left from Kushtia’s Kumarkhali.

Rajib, a resident of Rajbari Sadar, had boarded the bus in Goalanda, intending to travel to Dhaka.

Describing that horrific moment, he said, “After falling, the bus went underwater, and I felt about 12 to 13 people falling on me.”

Rajib tried to hold himself steady by gripping the bus window as panic spread inside.

“One person was standing on my back, another climbing on my neck. I thought I shouldn’t move forward as the bus was going down,” he recalled.

“Then, unexpectedly, a strong water current rushed through the window.

“As the bus went underwater and turned, the stream pushed me upward. I managed to climb out, swimming with the current.”

He later climbed onto a pontoon, rested for a while, and called his brother, who came to take him home.

Rajib claimed that the bus driver got off the bus and went to have tea, and his assistant was behind the steering wheel.

However, when told that the driver’s body had been found inside the bus, he said he had heard the driver died of a “stroke” upon learning about the accident.

The Showhardo Paribahan bus fell into the Padma River from the pontoon at the ferry terminal in Rajbari around 5:15pm on Wednesday.

The bus was returning to Dhaka via Daulatdia, reportedly carrying over 40 passengers.

According to witness accounts and video footage, the bus was waiting to board the ferry at No. 3 ferry ghat when it suddenly began moving and fell off the pontoon into the Padma, immediately plummeting nearly 50 feet into the river.

Several passengers managed to swim out of the sinking bus, but most were trapped. By Thursday afternoon, 26 bodies had been recovered from the river.