A severe traffic jam has brought movement to a crawl across a roughly 10-kilometre stretch of the Dhaka-Sylhet highway in Sarail, Brahmanbaria, with road improvement work at the Sarail Bishwa Road roundabout disrupting traffic on several major routes.
The congestion has affected the Dhaka-Sylhet and Cumilla-Sylhet highways as well as the regional road linking Bishwa Road with Nasirnagar. Thousands of passengers and motorists have faced prolonged delays, while the growing queues of vehicles have created significant difficulties for people travelling through the area.
The congestion began around midday on Monday, 7 September. On the Dhaka-Sylhet highway, vehicles were backed up from Beratla to Bariura, covering an area of about 10 kilometres. Traffic also became heavily congested around Nandanpur on the Cumilla-Sylhet highway and as far as Sarail Bazaar along the Bishwa Road-Nasirnagar regional route.
Police and local sources attributed the worsening situation to several factors operating at the same time. Road improvement work at the Sarail Bishwa Road roundabout has reduced the space available for vehicles, while potholes at different points along the highways have slowed traffic. The movement of heavy goods vehicles has added further pressure to the already restricted roads.
Conditions around the roundabout were particularly difficult. Vehicles travelling from Dhaka towards Sylhet were using two lanes, but ongoing work on the roads leading from Sylhet towards Dhaka and Cumilla was disrupting the normal flow in those directions.
The situation was made worse by the way some CNG-powered auto-rickshaws were stopping to pick up and drop off passengers. Drivers stopping in the middle of the road were reducing the available space for other vehicles and contributing to further bottlenecks.
Heavy goods vehicles becoming stuck in potholes at regular intervals were another major problem. When a large vehicle is unable to move, traffic behind it quickly begins to accumulate. At a busy junction such as Bishwa Road, where several important routes converge, even a temporary obstruction can have a much wider impact.
The Sarail Bishwa Road area is an important connection point for traffic travelling towards Sylhet, Dhaka, Cumilla and Nasirnagar. As a result, disruption at the roundabout can rapidly spread to adjoining roads, creating long queues in several directions.
Abdul Halim Dewan, officer-in-charge of the Sarail-Khatihata Highway Police Station, said repair work was continuing on the Bishwa Road and that potholes at several locations were causing goods vehicles to become stuck repeatedly.
He said these problems had contributed directly to the traffic congestion.
According to the highway police, officers have been working continuously to ease the situation and restore normal traffic movement as quickly as possible.
The incident has once again highlighted the difficulties that can arise when major road improvement work is carried out on a busy transport corridor without sufficient space for uninterrupted traffic movement. Until the work is completed, effective traffic management will remain crucial, particularly at the roundabout and at locations where heavy vehicles are vulnerable to becoming trapped in potholes.
For passengers travelling through Sarail, however, the immediate concern remains the same: reaching their destinations after hours of uncertainty on a road that has become heavily congested in multiple directions.
