A truck carrying iron rods and extra passengers overturned on a major highway early Monday in central Bangladesh, leaving at least 15 people dead and 10 others injured, police said.

The crash happened after the driver lost control around 5 am at Soratoil area in Tangail district, 83 kilometres (52 miles) northwest of the nation's capital, Dhaka, said local police chief Fuad Hossain.

"The accident occurred on the eastern side of the Jamuna Bridge that connects northwestern Bangladesh with the central part," local fire station in charge, Ataur Rahman, told reporters.

He said the 10 injured were shifted to a local health facility for treatment with help from the people in neighbouring areas.

Hossain said the truck was carrying hitchhiking passengers and travelling from Dhaka to the northern region as vacationers began travelling ahead of the Islamic festival Eid al-Adha on Thursday. The truck overturned and killed them at the scene, he said.

The official said most of the passengers were day labourers and were travelling to join their families for the festival.

The tragic incident took place even as a 10-day vacation of Eid-ul-Adha began on Monday. People have started to rush to their hometowns for the festival, jamming buses, trains and ferries.

Witnesses told TV stations that they rushed to the scene after hearing noise and started rescuing passengers who got trapped.

Police, however, said the identities of the 15 people could not be known immediately, and efforts were underway to identify them.

Road accidents kill thousands every year in the nation of more than 170 million people because of lax oversight of traffic rules, bad road conditions and unskilled driving.

According to a 2021 World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate, road crashes kill some 32,000 Bangladeshis every year.