With three days to go for Eid-ul-Azha, safety took a backseat yesterday as holidaymakers scrambled atop overloaded trains and buses to go home for the festival.

Even ferries, trucks and other modes of travel were filled to the brim with passengers jostling for space.

Trains appeared to be the most favoured mode, notwithstanding the fact that all tickets were sold days before. People squatted on the tracks outside stations since early morning, waiting for north-bound trains to scale up the windows to the roofs.

Except for the elderly and disabled, homeward bound people scampered atop the trains, and even children were pushed up on the roofs by their desperate parents.

Though travelling on top of trains is prohibited given the risks, railway officials and police preferred to look the other way with passengers generously handing out “Eid baksheesh”.

The bus terminals too presented a similar scene, as long distance buses rolled out packed with passengers.

The roads heading out of Dhaka too were clogged with long rows of vehicles stretching for kilometres. Highway police teams, however, managed to keep the vehicles rolling by clearing the congestions. Police said many ramshackle vehicles broke down frequently in the middle of the roads, adding to the massive tailbacks.

Only trucks carrying cattle somehow managed to make their southward journeys to the animal markets in the capital and the port city of Chittagong.

They mostly ferried locally bred cows that traders had bought cheaply from the flood-hit farmers in the north.

The cattle trucks arrived into the city down the Bangabandhu Jamuna bridge and the Daulatdia-Paturia ferry terminals, where the drivers and traders had to wait for long hours due to congestions on both sides of Jamuna and Padma Rivers.

Sources said old ferries were not moving for days, unable to negotiate the swift currents of the rivers for the past few days. Also, some of the ferries had broken down, adding to the chaos at the ferry terminals.

However, some ferry boats have started sailing again after the river currents started ebbing with the recession of flood waters, reports said yesterday.

BIWTC sources said other routes downstream to the south at Shimulia and Kathalbari were also getting back to normal.

Even the cattle trucks on their return journeys were much sought after transport by the poor, mostly rickshaw peddlers and workers, as they provided a cheaper alternative than trains and buses. Some even travelled by pickups or covered vans, despite the discomforting heat and humidity.

Overcrowded launches with too little safety gears were seen leaving the Sadarghat launch terminal in the capital, posing threats to the lives of thousands of home-goers.

Most of the launches were carrying passengers beyond their capacity and the scenario is sure to get worse today.

The authorities have already instructed launch operators to keep ample life-saving gears on board, and warned of actions otherwise. However, scanty life buoys and life jackets were merely enough for the massive crowds making their trips back home.