Dhaka, March 15 -- Westbound trains for the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays have been fully booked within 30 minutes of tickets going online on the second day of sales.

The sales opened on the Bangladesh Railway website at 8am on Saturday. Tickets for the eastern region will be available from 2pm.

"After the ticket sales began, there were 7.3 million hits [on the Bangladesh Railway website] between 8:00am and 8:30am," said Md Mohabbatjan Chowdhury, a Bangladesh Railway official.

Advance train tickets will be available 10 days before the scheduled travel date. Saturday's sales cover bookings for Mar 25.

However, tickets for Mar 31, Apr 1, and Apr 2 will be released based on the sighting of the moon for Eid.

This year, 35,315 advance tickets will...