A 78-year-old woman in Ranishankoil upazila of Thakurgaon died about an hour after the death of her 90-year-old husband, reportedly overwhelmed by grief.

The incident occurred this morning at Dharmagar Porabari village.

The deceased were identified as Nagen Chandra and his wife Sinjo Bala, who had been married for nearly seven decades and were parents to two sons and four daughters.

Locals described the couple as inseparable, saying they had never seen them quarrel throughout their long marriage.

Family members said Nagen, who had been suffering from age-related illnesses for several months, breathed his last around 5:00am today. Soon after witnessing her husband’s death, Sinjo began fainting repeatedly and passed away around 6:00am.

Their deaths cast a pall over the village, with residents saying the couple were “united in death, as they had been in life.”

Later that afternoon, they were cremated together on a shoal of the Nagor river along the Bangladesh-India border, as relatives and villagers bade them a tearful farewell.