We witness a sharp rise in death by electrocution every year during the monsoon. Unsafe high voltage electric wires have turned into death traps for people across the country.
Many people have died after being electrocuted due to the uncovered power line. The number of fatalities and injuries caused by electrocution is now on the rise.
Many deaths have been taking place every year in different places in the country because of live electric wires swaying and hanging from the poles and other sources indiscriminately. With rain, people of different districts including the capital Dhaka, other metropolitan cities, district towns, and even remote villages fear electrocution as wire snaps.
When cities’ key roads, streets, lanes and by-lanes are flooded with rainwater, many dangerously tilted or hanging live electrical wires or poles partially or totally submerged in water, creating an electrical field in the water and claim lives. The commuters are being exposed to a nightmare on their way as they cannot trace where the electrical cables remain submerged in water-logged roads and streets.
Unsafe high voltage
electric wires have turned
into death traps for
people across the country
The storm also tears off electric cables, uproots trees, and topples power poles, posing the risk of deadly accidents anytime. Uncovered electric lines are also running through the rural area killing people there silently. Three people, including two sisters, were killed by electrocution in separate incidents in the Kochakata area of Nageshwari Upazila, Kurigram on Friday.
The electric wires are seen hanging indiscriminately while many villagers are lighting up their houses and doing business by arranging power connections from different sources like nearby shops and illegally from electric poles. Electricity is also being supplied to houses, business shops, and other purposes, using bamboo poles in many villages under the very nose of the authorities concerned.
On the other hand, many poles have been set up on the farm lands to carry the high voltage cables, posing a high risk to farmers and other people many areas. Thousands of people pass through the streets, footpaths, village roads and even farmland day and night, mostly without noticing the open electric wires. They may come into contact with the live electric wires anytime and meet the traffic end of their lives due to electrocution. The ministries concerned must take immediate measures to remove risky electric wires and replace vulnerable poles.
