Bangladesh News

The unheeded warnings from geologists and environmentalists of massive landslides are becoming a scary reality for the people of Chittagong and other hill districts.

Over the years, the authorities concerned did not care to act on the warnings that indiscriminate hill-cutting was a disaster waiting to happen.

Landslides that have left more than 200 people dead and scores injured in Chittagong and three other districts in last three decades are getting recurrent these days.

Experts attribute the increasing frequency to mindless razing of hills. Things look most ominous in Chittagong, the second largest city, where even moderate rain can trigger mudslides.

Citing examples of China and Pakistan, they said the scale and frequency of landslides will shoot up with earthquakes becoming more common.

Several hundred hills have disappeared over the last three decades. In the port city alone, more than a hundred hills have been razed, reveals a survey by geologists of Chittagong University.

According to the survey findings, Khulshi, Panchlaish, Nasirabad, Pahartoli, Sholoshahar, Bayezid Bostami, Foy’s Lake, Lalkhan Bazar, Oxygen intersection and Polytechnic areas are the worst affected in .

Silimpur under Sitakunda, Jungle Pahartoli under Hathazari upazila and some other parts in the district too have been subjected to rampant hill cutting.

ASM Maksud Kamal of UNDP, a national expert on earthquake and Tsunami preparedness, said the hills in Chittagong are usually cut with slopes of 70-80 degrees, making those highly unstable.

“During the earthquake the risk of landslide will increase manifolds. We are now working on the risk of landslides during earthquake,” he said.

In China, around 80 thousand people perished in a massive earthquake. Of them, 30 thousands died due to tremor-induced landslides. In Pakistan, landslide was responsible for one-third of 75 thousand deaths in the quake of 2004, he added.

Despite recurrent tragedies in the recent years, the government agencies seem reluctant to enforce the laws and circulations regarding hill-cutting.