Life in Chittagong has been at standstill due to the downpour since Friday which has waterlogged a huge area of the city. The flood has caused immense sufferings for the city-dwellers and, in some cases, has been life threatening.
Around 150mm of rainfall was recorded in 24 hours until 3pm yesterday, said Nur Mohammad, duty officer at the Meteorological Office in the city’s Patenga area.
A special weather bulletin issued by Bangladesh Meteorological Department yesterday said under the influence of the deep convection over the North Bay of Bengal, stormy weather may continue over the North Bay, the adjoining coastal areas of the country and the maritime ports.
Due to the rain, parts of a hill collapsed on a four-storey building at Bagghona area around 4pm yesterday. No casualty was reported, said fire brigade sources.
Md Jashim Uddin, deputy assistant director of Fire Service and Civil Defence headquarters in Chittagong, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had rescued all the residents from the building.
“We also evacuated a building close to the affected one to further avoid casualty,” he said.
The landslide was caused by an under-construction building on the hill slope, he added.
Parts of another hill collapsed on four thatched houses in the city’s Kushumbagh area yesterday morning, but no casualty was reported, according to the fire brigade officials.
Anticipating the mudslide due to the heavy rainfall, the district administration started a campaign asking the hill-side dwellers to move to the nearby school buildings and cyclone centres, said Chittagong district administration sources.
The district administration and Chittagong Metropolitan Police jointly evicted 666 hillside dwellers from 11 risky hills in the city by yesterday, said Additional Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) Abdul Quader of Chittagong district administration.
Because of the heavy rainfall, water submerged the tracks on No. 34 rail bridge in the Navy Gate area under Sitakunda upazila, which halted the rail communication between the port city and the rest of the country around 12pm, said Bangladesh Railway sources.
However, the railway technicians restored the communication around 4:30pm, said Tofajjal Hossain, general manager of Bangladesh Railway (East Zone).
Several train services between Chittagong and other parts of the country was halted, while a few others were delayed, said AA Shamul Alam, station manager of Chittagong railway station.
Public suffering: What is the government doing?
Motorised vehicles were hardly seen in the waterlogged areas and commuters, mostly office-goers and students, had to wade through filthy water from the overflowing roadside drains.
Sumon Sikhdar, a commuter, had to pay excessive rickshaw fares. He blamed the poor drainage system of the city for the waterlogging.
Chittagong City Corporation Mayor M Manjur Alam, however, said the city’s drainage system was better than what it was 10-15 years ago.
Claiming waterlogging as the prime problem, the mayor said it would not be solved until the government implemented the Drainage Master Plan of 1995, as per the city corporation’s repeated requests.
“The city’s drainage system can endure up to 80mm of rainfall. The low-lying areas and roads get flooded when the rainfall exceeds that limit,” he said.
The present mayor had promised to to remove the waterlogging problem during the city corporation election campaign four years ago.
Port activities at halt
Ship movement at the Chittagong Sea Port channel were almost halted during the day yesterday due to the excessive rainfall.
Mohibul Haq, director (admin) of Chittagong Port Authority, told the Dhaka Tribune that a few vessels were able to enter the jetties, and some others had left.
“Ship movement at the port channel was suspended temporarily from 7am until noon due to torrential rain,” he said.
The loading and uploading of the goods at the port jetties and outer anchorage also remained suspended during the day shift, he added.
