A planned 14-hour gas outage turned into a 26-hour ordeal for residents and business owners in Brahmanbaria, leaving over 23,000 domestic and commercial connections completely without supply. The disruption, which was scheduled to end on Tuesday night, dragged on until Wednesday morning, crippling daily routines and triggering widespread frustration across Brahmanbaria town, Sadar, and Sarail upazilas.
According to a press release issued on Monday afternoon by the Brahmanbaria office of Bakhrabad Gas Distribution Company Limited (BGDCL), supply was meant to be suspended from 8:00 am until 10:00 pm on Tuesday for urgent pipeline repairs and maintenance. However, supply was only restored after 10:00 am on Wednesday morning.
The prolonged shutdown severely disrupted domestic life. Households across the affected areas were unable to cook meals, forcing residents to seek alternative arrangements. Local eateries were quickly overwhelmed by the sudden surge in demand, leaving many people unable to purchase food. Chakiya Begum, a college teacher from Pathanpara in Sarail, recounted her experience of waiting until midnight in the hope of cooking dinner for her family. With no gas arriving and local restaurants entirely out of breakfast items the following morning, she was forced to leave home after consuming a hasty meal of flattened rice. She noted that an advance warning regarding the extended delay would have spared thousands from acute distress.
Commercial operations and public transport were equally hard-hit. Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) auto-rickshaw drivers faced severe losses after waiting in long queues at filling stations overnight. Drivers reported standing in line from Tuesday evening, only to return home empty-handed in the early hours of Wednesday. By the time stations resumed operations late Wednesday morning, massive gridlocks had formed, effectively wiping out two days of earnings for many daily-wage drivers.
Addressing the delay, Md. Shafiqul Haq, Deputy General Manager and Regional Head of the Bakhrabad Gas office in Brahmanbaria, explained that unexpected site conditions caused the lag. Maintenance work in the Ghatura area of Sadar upazila was hampered by heavy waterlogging, a factor officials had not anticipated prior to excavation. He stated that technical teams worked continuously to clear the site and complete the repairs, confirming that supply has now been fully normalised without further disruptions expected.
