At least five children and a woman were killed on Sunday when heavy rainfall triggered separate incidents of a landslide and a wall collapse in Chittagong city’s Bayezid and Khulshi areas.
Two arrests have already been made in connection with the landslide in Bayezid, while murder cases were filed yesterday for each of the incidents.
At around 2:30am on Sunday, a landslide on top of a hill-adjoining house at Amin Colony in Bayezid area claimed the lives of three siblings – Arafat Hossain Farid, 12, Ummay Salma, 2, and Bibi Moriam, 5.
The siblings – children of a local named Shahjahan – were brought out from under the dirt in critical conditions; doctors declared them dead after they were brought to the Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
Elsewhere in Lalkhan Bazaar’s Pora Colony area, three people including a mother and a daughter were killed when heavy rain caused a wall to collapse on their house.
The deceased are Moriam Begum, 30, her daughter Suraia, 2, and another Akhi, 5.
Bayezid police yesterday arrested Md Mohiuddin and Md Sohel – owners of the affected houses in Amin Colony – in a case filed over the deaths of the three siblings, said the police station’s Officer-in-Charge Pradip Kumar Das.
He said the police station’s Sub-Inspector Abdur Rahman filed a murder case against the two in connection with the incident.
Besides, Khulshi police station’s SI Russel Mahmud lodged a murder case against Khokan Ali – the owner of the affected house in Pora Colony – in connection to the Pura Colony wall collapse. Khulshi OC Nizam Uddin said the accused was on the run.
Landslides during the monsoon are a regular occurrence in the port city. Between 1997 and 2007, landslides in Chittagong claimed the lives of at least 60 people, including seven in 2002, 16 in 2000, and 19 more in 1999.
In 2007, a total 126 people were killed in the worst ever landslide in Chittagong; 17 people were killed in a landslide accompanied by wall collapse in the city’s Ambagan in 2011; and 11 persons died in landslide at Matojharna area in 2008.
According to Chittagong district administration, over 50,000 people still live at risky hill slopes that are vulnerable to landslides. However, different surveys in recent years have put the number over 1 million.