Four killed in Ctg hillslide

CHATTOGRAM, June 18: At least four people died in rain-triggered hillslide in the port city on Friday night.
Incessant rains in the last couple of days inundated all low-lying areas of the southeastern divisional city.
Weathermen and geologists warned that the continuous downpour in major portion of Chattogram district, including the port city in the last two days have put thousands of people living in hill areas of the city at high risk of landslides.
The local Met Office recorded 48.6 millimetres (mm) rain in the port city in the last 24 hours ending at 8:00am on Saturday. It was raining till filing of this report at 8:00pm yesterday.
The Met Office at Patenga has forecast heavy rainfall in Chattogram district and major parts of the three Chittagong Hill Tracts districts in the next 24 hours ending on Sunday morning. Rainfall may be 44mm to 88 mm this time around, they said.
Local administration officials and hospital sources confirmed deaths of four people in Friday night's hillslide in the city's Akber Shah area during heavy shower. At least 11 other people most of them hill-dwellers were injured in the landslide.
More rains could trigger further landslides in the city hill areas, officials said, citing the weather forecast for the next 24 hours.
Besides, they noted, a child aged only 5 years was killed in a landslide in Sorol Union under Banskhali upazila of the district on December 4 last year.
The heavy shower has affected normal lives in the port city in the last two days, locals said.
The city's low-lying areas, including Chaktai, No-2 Rail Gate, have gone under knee-deep water.
The people who live in the city's hill areas are passing their days at high risk due to the probability of mudslide or landslides during the current rainy season.
More than 50 thousand people are living in the port city's hill areas, sources said.
Areas prone to landslide in rainy season are Lalkhan Bazar, Bayazid Bostami, Motijhorna, Shershah Colony, Khulshi, Panchlaish, Sholoshahar, Foy's Lake, Oxygen Intersection and Polytechnic hill and Chaktai.
Incessant rains have rendered hilltop and their slopes in those areas soft and muddy, local said expressing fears of fresh landslides.
Meanwhile, the district administration has already taken steps to shift the city's hill dwellers to safer places in and around the city. Following Friday's fatal landslide, the local administration people started sensitising the city-dwellers about the danger of more landslides, including warning them with loudspeakers from Saturday morning.
Cautioning about imminent danger of hillslide or mudslide, the meteorologists said that more landslides are likely to take place in the mountainous areas of the port city as well as other hill areas of Chattogram division.
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