Port city lost 120 hills in 4 decades

A total of 120 hills disappeared from Chattogram city in four decades, Bangladesh Environment Forum, an environmental organisation, claimed yesterday.

In 1976, there were 32.37 square kilometers of hills in the port city and it decreased to 14.02 square kilometers in 2008, Aliur Rahman, general secretary of the forum, said in a written statement.

He was speaking at a press conference at Chattogram Press Club.

Aliur said there were 200 hills in the port city 40 years ago and 60 percent of those have disappeared now. Of them, Chattogram Development Authority (CDA) cut 15 hills due to construction of Bayezid Link Road, he claimed.

In the written statement, he also said the total hilly area in Salimpur was 3,100 acres. But in the last two decades, those have been cut and destroyed. Now thousands of houses have been built on those hills, he added.

The environment forum also placed a seven-point demand, including arrest of those involved in razing hills, at the press conference.

Mozammel Haque, former Vice-Chancellor of Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Manjurul Kibria; professor of Zoology Department of Chittagong University and Chowdhury Farid, president of Bangladesh Environment Forum's Chattogram chapter, among others, were present.