Play was halted for three minutes due to an earthquake that hit the country on Friday morning on the third day of the second Test between Bangladesh and Ireland at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.聽
There was panic around the stadium as both dressing rooms emptied while the fans in the stands started to leave their seats during the 56th over of Ireland鈥檚 first innings.聽
The journalists as well as the commentators working from the same building hastened to leave the press box area after the heavy tremors were felt.聽
鈥榃e didn鈥檛 understand what was happening at first. Then there was a sound coming from the media box where there were glasses. Then we felt something physically too. At that moment, there was some panic,鈥� said Taijul Islam after the day鈥檚 play.聽
It was more or less the same for the Irish contingent too.聽
鈥業鈥檝e been personally involved in a couple of earthquakes, as I鈥檝e lived in New Zealand for a while. It鈥檚 never a nice feeling,鈥� said Ireland head coach Heinrich Malan.聽
鈥楾here鈥檚 always trying to understand what is happening at the minute around us, but also, you know, maybe thinking about some bigger impacts, where the earthquake obviously struck, and hopefully that鈥檚 not too bad.
鈥業 think everything stood still for a couple of minutes, and we got back to business, and obviously we were just thinking and hoping that there wasn鈥檛 too much damage done,鈥� he added.聽
According to the US Geological Survey, the 5.5-magnitude earthquake struck at 10:38am
Bangladesh local time and was centred in the Gorashal area of Narsingdi district, about 25 kilometres from Dhaka.
However, the Bangladesh Meteorological Department said that the quake was of 5.7- magnitude.