Living dangerously on foothills

Every year monsoon arrives and like clockwork there are landslides in Chittagong burying and killing people, living in shanties on the foothills of hills. This is hardly news anymore. Yet we are forced to ask why the administration looked the other way when such hill slopes and foothills were being expropriated allowing for construction of residences on them decade after decade. Not only that, there appear to be no move to relocate people, mostly belonging to lower income groups to safer ground. Going by what has been published in this newspaper, we find much to our alarm that no less than 185 people have lost their lives to such accidents since 2007. What is even more surprising is that authorities have found some 30 hills to be vulnerable to landslides and yet there are communities living around these hills.
With little vegetation growing on the topsoil of these hills, they are prone to landslides in case of heavy downpour. All this of course is known fact. With some 10,000 people living in these danger zones, surely relocation is not that much of a problem? There will always be a steady stream of people seeking accommodation in the rickety buildings found at the bottom a hill where the monthly rent is significantly lower than elsewhere in the city. The poor have just as much right to live as the rest of society. We believe it is high time authorities take steps to relocate these hapless people to more secure ground in the interest of public safety.