DHAKA: The oil price spike caused by the war in the Middle East has sparked unrest in Bangladesh and exasperation at petrol pumps around Asia, where many economies are heavily dependent on fossil fuel imports.
Even as governments move to limit the impact on fuel prices, lines have formed at petrol stations in countries including Vietnam, Pakistan and the Philippines, although the situation remains stable elsewhere.
In Bangladesh — which imports 95 percent of its oil and gas needs — the military has been deployed at major oil depots, as police patrol in and around filling stations. “We haven’t received supply from the depot, but the bike riders weren’t convinced and vandalised the station,” said petrol station worker Ashrafuzzaman Dulal told AFP, describing violence on Sunday.
On Tuesday his station Shahjahan Traders, one of the oldest in the capital Dhaka, had hung a banner apologising because its stock had run out.
The South Asian nation of 170 million people has started fuel rationing, sent students home and scrapped celebratory light displays over the energy crunch. One man was killed on Saturday night in the southern Bangladeshi district of Jhenaidah after an altercation over refuelling with staff.
Following the 25-year-old’s death, angry crowds torched three buses and vandalised a filling station, police said.
On Tuesday, queues stretched for 1.5 kilometres (nearly one mile) through Dhaka’s city centre.
“My boss left the car here and took a rickshaw to reach his destination,” Kamrul Hasan, who was waiting in a vehicle almost at the end of the queue, told AFP.
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