Air traffic officials at Zia International Airport said at least 20 international flights of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Gulf Airlines, Emirates Airlines, and British Airways could not land at the airport at scheduled times.

No national or international flights landed at the airport during 11:51pm on Friday and 10:41am on Saturday, they said.

Heavy fog lowered down normal eyesight at only 200 metres, forcing drivers either to halt their journey halfway or to speed down. This doubled the time to reach destinations, said drivers of different vehicles from different parts of the country.

At least 40 passenger ferries from the southern region could not reach Dhaka's Sadarghat terminal yesterday, Port Traffic Inspector Babu Lal Boidya told reporters.

Sources at Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation (BIWTC) said about 50 launches, which operate on 28 routes from Dhaka to the country's southern region, were stranded at different places between Chandpur and Hizla on the Meghna and its branches.

Quoting BITWC officials at Paturia, our Manikganj correspondent said about 20,000 stranded passengers on board more than 800 vehicles immensely suffered on both sides of the Padma and the Jamuna at Daulatdia, Paturia and Nagarbari points.

Around 350 vehicles from Dhaka lined up at Paturia in Manikganj whereas 430 vehicles that included Biswa Ijtema-bound buses lined up at Daulatdia in Rajbari. About 20 vehicles queued up at Nagarbari terminal in Pabna.

Army men were seen controlling the traffic at the terminals to ease sufferings of the stranded passengers.

In Munshiganj, ferry movement on Maowa-Keorakandi route was severely disrupted for about 11 hours until 10:00am yesterday morning due to dense fog, causing immense sufferings to the passengers, reports UNB.

BIWTC sources said ferry service on the route remained halted for over 11 hours leaving several hundred vehicles stranded on both sides of the river Padma.

Passengers of the stranded vehicles said they had to suffer a lot due to acute scarcity of food and drinking water.

Meanwhile, ferry movement through Muktarpur ferry ghat remained suspended for hours due to the same reason.

BIWTC sources said thick fog forced 19 large launches and a number of boats to anchor in mid Padma, Meghna, Shitalakhya and Buriganga rivers.

Meteorologists, however, forecast that the foggy weather will start normalising by tomorrow. Temperature might fall by a couple of degrees but there is no possibility of any cold wave, they said.