TWO people, including a mother and her 4-year-old baby girl, were buried under mud following a landslide triggered by heavy rainfall in Kaptai upazila of Rangamati on Monday. Members of Fire Service with the help of local people conducted a rescue operation at the spot, the media reported.
There lays always a risk of landslide in Chattogram and Chattogram Hill Tracts whenever there is an incessant rain for a couple of days. On 12 June 2017, heavy monsoon rain triggered a series of landslides and floods in Chattagram and Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachhari — three hill districts of Chattogram Hill Tracts — killed at least 152 people. The landslides were the worst in the country’s history. There are a total of 28 risky hills in the city, of them, 17 are very risky.
Newspapers reported that fearing landslides amid heavy rains that continued for the fourth consecutive day on Monday in Chattogram, the local Administration evacuated people who were living in different hill pockets of city risking their lives. About 34 families were evacuated from the Modhu Shah hill and the hill adjacent to Polytechnic Institute. Earlier, residents in Lalkhan Bazar and Motijharna areas were asked by the authorities to avert possible casualties. Over 700 people thronged the District Administration shelters since Saturday morning.
According to the DC’s office, several schools have been turned into shelters where six Assistant Commissioners (land) from six Administrative Circles and District Relief and Rehabilitation Officials were deployed. Adequate relief items like dry food and drinking water were stored there. Meanwhile, the incessant downpour has multiplied the sufferings of the citizens of Chattogram city. Most of the Port City’s low-lying areas are now under knee-deep to waist-deep water. The torrential rains and tidal surges flooded the ground floor of the Mother and Child Hospital in Agrabad.
We must say the authorities concerned have failed to apply a sustainable method to rescue the residents of Chattogram and CHT from the water-logging and landslides which has become a common scenario every year. Unplanned development with destroying ecosystem is now taking revenge on the people. We fear, there will be no respite of Chattogram people from the sufferings in the near future.
