At least five people of the same family have been killed and another went missing after a rain-triggered landslide struck their house in Bangladesh southeastern Chittagong hill region on Friday, the police said.
Razaur Rahaman, a senior police official in Chittagong district, 242 km southeast of capital Dhaka, told journalists that five bodies had been recovered.
He said another person went missing in the landslide.
“The incident, the third in less than two months, occurred in a remote hilly area of Chittagong’s Sitakunda in the early morning hours due to incessant rain.
“All the deceased who were trapped under the rubble, had been pulled out after an hour-long rescue operation.
“Among the dead are two children,’’ another police official Tajul Islam said.
In recent years, according to experts, unplanned urbanisation and illegal constructions, mainly on the outskirts, has increased the chances of landslide and other disasters in five districts in Chittagong Hill Tracts.
They said hundreds of families, particularly those who have migrated from other parts of the country due to climate disasters, have settled on such foothills which always have the chances of landslides.
The country’s meteorological office said it had recorded 378 mm rainfall in the Chittagong hill region in the last 12 hours till Thursday night.
It said that the number was higher than the rainfall that had triggered deadly landslides in the region on June 11.
The fresh incidents were reported as the wounds of last month’s massive landslides have yet to heal.
At least 153 people were reported killed and hundreds of others injured in the landslides that devastated places in five districts in Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh on June 11.
The victims included four members of the Army, two of whom were officers.
