Dhaka's popular public transport metrorail has suffered two cases of bearing pads falling off in the space of a year. The first incident at Farmgate last year did not result in any casualties, but train services were temporarily suspended. But on Sunday (October 26), a pedestrian named Abul Kalam (35) died on the spot after being hit by another bearing pad that fell off at the same Farmgate. Passenger transport on the train has been suspended.

Now many people are curious about the bearing pad. Discussions are going on about what it is and what it is used for. Questions are being raised about why it is coming loose. There is a new panic among pedestrians and passengers about whether it is coming loose again in other areas of the metro rail.

Passengers and city residents complain that the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL), which is responsible for building and operating the metro rail, has not learned from the previous accident. If they had been more careful in the previous incident, the pedestrian would not have lost his life and millions of passengers would not have suffered.

Shamim Zaman, a private employee, travels by metro from Mirpur 10 to Motijheel to work. This afternoon, while going to Mirpur by bus, he said on his mobile phone that another accident occurred due to the negligence of the metro authorities. The pedestrian who died should be considered a murder. So that such incidents do not happen again in the future.

On September 18, 2024, a bearing pad fell off pillar 430 of the Metrorail at Farmgate. Train services were suspended for 11 hours that day. A committee was formed to investigate the incident. But DMTCL later did not disclose why the pad fell off or what the investigation committee recommended.

On Sunday, a bearing pad came loose from pillar number 433, which is just west of Farmgate station. DMTCL Managing Director (MD) Farooq Ahmed inspected the spot after the incident. In response to questions from reporters, he said that an investigation will be conducted into why the bearing pad came loose from the pillar. But he could not give a good answer as to why the same incident happened again after the previous one. He only said that everything will be investigated and found out.

According to DMTCL sources, the bearing pad is a rectangular soft pad made of a mixture of rubber and steel. Four such pads are placed on each pillar of the metro rail. Each pad weighs 120 to 150 kg. The metro rail viaduct or flyover is placed on the pad. This viaduct is made of concrete, which is made of a pair of spans 30 to 40 meters long. Since both the viaduct and the pillar are made of concrete, placing one of the two concrete objects on top of the other can cause friction problems while the train is running. There may be corrosion, displacement may also occur. That is why a bearing pad made of rubber and steel is placed between the viaduct and the pillar, which works to protect the structure.

There is a base or foundation for placing the bearing pads at the junction of the pillar and the viaduct. It is not fastened with nuts and bolts or anything else; rather, it remains in a specific place under the pressure of heavy objects like the pillar and the viaduct. Each span of the viaduct will weigh several hundred tons. But why the bearing pad fell down despite so much weight is a big question for everyone. Because, experts and concerned people believe that such an incident is very rare in the history of the metrorail. They fear that there may be a design flaw behind it. NKDM Association, an alliance of several Japanese consulting firms, was responsible for preparing all the designs, including the metrorail line.