The Hill Management Committee of Chittagong Division has decided to immediately remove families living in three hilly areas to avoid casualties due to potential landslides during monsoon.
The decision came at the committee’s 14th meeting held at Chittagong divisional commissioner’s office yesterday from 2:30pm to 4:30pm.
The areas in question are Motijharna and Batali Hill and the adjoining hills, Probortok Hill and Ispahani Hill, Divisional Commissioner Mohammad Abdullah told reporters after the meeting.
The committee also decided to evacuate around 700 families that are living in 30 hills in the city and the surrounding areas on priority basis before monsoon starts.
The gas, water and electricity connections to those areas will also be cut off for the season, and community and area based volunteer teams will be formed to aid the evacuation drives.
“We will sit with the all stakeholders involved in this regard to drive home the seriousness of this issue,” Abdullah said.
The committee is working on the temporary accommodation of the families, and a medical team will be in standby if anyone is indeed affected by landslides, he added.
Around 1,000,000 people live in the vulnerable hilly slopes in the city and elsewhere around the district, according to a survey done by the committee last year.
A series of landslides in Chittagong hills in recent years took a number of lives, the worst being in 2007 which killed 126.
