Two killed in landslide

A mudslide induced by heavy rain destroys a home at the foot of a hill in Lalkhan Bazar in Chittagong city, killing two persons. Many families decided to stay in places identified as high risk to landslides even though the authorities concerned had asked them to move to safer places. Photo: Anurup Kanti Das

They defied repeated warnings by the authorities and ended up being buried alive even as they slept, when a downpour triggered a landslide in Chittagong city early yesterday.
Some 30 to 35 families seem unperturbed by the tragic deaths of Fatema Begum, 38, and her daughter Kusum Akhter, 15, of Comilla, in the landslide as they are still living at a slum in Tankir Pahar.
The mother and daughter had been working at a garment factory and living in a rented shanty at the slum in one of the foothills in Tankir Pahar.
Yesterday, they slept off after taking sehri, said Shahanaj, one of their neighbours.
"Around 5:00am, I heard a noise and asked them to move out of their room as a heavy downpour was continuing since midnight. Right then a chunk of earth fell on the room."
Amir Hossain, son of Md Akbar, had built the slum by cutting a hill at an angle of 90 degrees, local people said. The correspondent there found some 30 to 35 tin-roofed houses rented out to people from the low income group, like rickshaw-pullers, domestic workers, garment workers and day labourers.
Fatima was one of Amir's tenants.
The hill on the top has some 20 tin-roofed houses built by Md Belayet, a traffic policeman, the residents said.
The deaths took place amid a campaign by the district administration asking people to move to safety from the foothills.
The authorities evacuated some families from places vulnerable to landslides at the beginning of the rainy season one and a half months ago.
Around 5,000 families live beneath 14 vulnerable hills, mostly owned by the Public Works Department , Railway, Water Supply and Sewerage Authority and Chittagong City Corporation. Most of the hills are in Lal Khan     Bazar, Moti Jharna, Tankir Pahar and Akbar Shah  areas.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Chittagong Humayun Kabir told The Daily Star that the administration had asked people living at the foothills in Tiger Pass, Batali Hill and Tankir Pahar to move to shelters like schools or tents set up by the district administration in the Tiger Pass area.
Since 2007, 166 men, women and children have lost their lives in landslides in the port city.