The hills in southeastern Chittagong continue to hit the headlines as landslides continue to kill the people who live on their slopes. The other day, three persons were killed in a landslide in Rangunia upazila when some workers were cutting a hill. The Rajanagar union parishad chairman said at least 10 people were cutting the hill when the tragedy struck. The upazila nirbahi officer of Rangunia said they are yet to identify the hill-cutting gang.
It is really strange that despite deaths caused by recurring landslides due to rampant hill-cutting in Chittagong belt, no surveillance has yet been put in place. Whenever a tragedy happens, the authorities assure that tough actions would be taken against hill-cutters but their pledges turn out to be hollow later. Even the people who build huts on hilly slopes are allowed to remain there.
Climate experts have warned that the country's hilly region will face more landslides in future due to increased variability of rainfall caused by climate change. "The intensity of rainfall will go up in the hilly areas of Chittagong in the days to come due to climate change...higher intensity of precipitation will occur in a shorter period of time, causing more devastating landsides," Dr Atiq Rahman, a well-known climate researcher, said.
A 2014 study of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology also showed that the increasing precipitation trend can be seen in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region in the days to come.
About the nature of the country's hills, Dr Atiq said the stability of Bangladesh's hills is very poor as most of them are created with clay, not with rock. Since rain directly falls on clay-built hills due to deforestation and hill cutting, it affects the hill slopes and triggers landslides, he said, observing that the hilly areas of the Chittagong region that experienced high deforestation and hill cutting have counted huge loss in landslides this year. Dr Atiq Rahman, executive director of Bangladesh Centre for Advance Studies (BCAS), suggested an immediate stop to hill levelling and huge afforestation to stabilise hill slopes.
Landslides depend on the nature of hills. When slopes of a hill are changed anyway, one kind of pressure is created inside the hill and cause landslides. Blaming development works that changed hill slopes in the CHT, Malik Fida A Khan of the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), said if the nature of hills is changed due to unplanned settlement and agriculture landslides will certainly take place there. He stressed the need for taking immediate measures to stop settlement on hills and check such agriculture that needs clearing of the hills.
Over 154 people, including five army personnel, were killed as torrential rains triggered a series of landslides in southeastern hills last year.