Unheeded warnings:: New Age Xtra

This article was originally published in New Age Xtra on June 25, 2010

Unheeded warnings

Syed Tashfin Chowdhury writes about the recent landslide in the Cox’s Bazar district and how the disaster could have been managed with more diligence on the government’s part

Fisherman Nuru Miah and his wife were getting ready to leave their makeshift house at the Chhara near Himchhari around 7:00am on June 15, while waiving away the incessant rain that began four days ago.

‘We got out of our house and were moving towards the beach when a loud sound came from the mountain overlooking the 17 Engineers Construction Battalion camp,’ Nuru tells Xtra.

Nuru and his wife witnessed a huge Banyan tree fall approximately 80 feet from the mountain, and on the camp. ‘Around 15 soldiers, who could be seen at the camp premises just a few seconds before, were seemingly swallowed up by the massive tree,’ he says.

While most of the soldiers were badly injured, the dead bodies of Sergeant Mohammad Afsar Ali of Netrakona, Corporal Mohmmad Habibur Rahman of Tangail, and sepoys Mohammad Humayun Kabir of Jamalpur, Mohammad Ismail Hossain of Cox’s Bazar, Mohammad Abdul Malek of Chuadanga and Mohammad Aslam were recovered after the disaster, according to an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) release. 

The death toll was worse in other parts of the Cox’s Bazar district. According to the Cox’s Bazar district administration sources, 32 people were killed at Teknaf, nine in Ukhiya, and two in the district headquarters on the same morning, in the same manner.

According to a situation report, jointly issued on June 15, by the Ministry of Disaster Management Information Centre, Disaster Management Bureau (DMB) and Ministry of Food and Disaster Management and prepared with support from Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme, 54 people died on June 15.

Of this, 34 people died in different places of Teknaf, nine in Rahmat’s Beel of Palongkhali union of Ukhia and one in Sadar, died when landslides struck at Ukhia and Teknaf as a result of two days’ heavy rainfall, on early morning of June 15, 2010 (after midnight of June 14, 2010).

It also mentioned the deaths of five army personnel and one soldier missing, whose body was recovered later on June 16, at Cox’s Bazar, and the deaths of four more at Bandarban.

While the casualties are clearly over 53, over a 100 people were injured by the landslide with some of them left paralysed for the rest of their lives.

Such is the case of Mojaher Hossain, a rickshaw puller, who was buried alive along with his wife, son and daughter, while they were inside their hut at the mountain in Cox’s Bazar when the mud slide occurred some two km away from Himchhari. While his wife and son suffered minor injuries, Mojaher is languishing at Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital with a broken back and hands, while his 11-year-old daughter is still under doctor’s observation at the same hospital. 

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Landslides have become rampant during the monsoon season over the last few years. The most disastrous were the series of landslides that occurred in Chittagong and its surrounding areas on June 11, 2007, claiming the lives of 126 people following heavy rainfall.

Although the disaster had raised many questions regarding the illegal hill cutting, the poorest households living in huts underneath the hills, the readiness of the disaster management bureau in case of such disasters and so on at the time, the most recent disaster has pointed out that the outcomes and suggestions by experts to the government during earlier discussions and the promises made by the concerned government authorities, were never really implemented. As experts point out, without proper implementation, these disasters will continue to occur.

‘Many suggestions and recommendations were sent to the government for implementation after previous landslides and similar disasters,’ says Professor Aftab Alam Khan, department of geology, University of Dhaka. ‘However, these papers mostly found their way to the government’s wastepaper bins later on as none of these were implemented,’ he adds.

Experts like Professor Aftab and others point out that the reasons behind disasters like landslides, mudslides, earthquakes and others in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region has been the same over the last decade or so. ‘We are showing off our muscle power to nature by cutting down the hills arbitrarily without even realising that nature can care less by paying back through such disasters,’ he says.

Another expert from the geography department of Dhaka University (DU) said, during a live talk show aired on a television channel on June 17, that the cutting down of trees in the hill tracts region, the increasing flow of the poor to these areas and the jhum cultivation, traditional to these areas, are triggering such disasters.

‘The roots of the trees actually hold on to soil. When these are cut down, the soil becomes weaker and is easily movable by persistent rainfall during the monsoon season,’ he said. ‘We also need to examine traditional agricultural methods such as jhum cultivation where hundreds of plants on top of hills are burnt,’ he added.

He also pointed out that the earthquake in this region a few years ago, created faults on numerous mountains. ‘These mountains could have been zoned depending on the risk factors involved and the poor families, living in huts under mountains, could have been asked to relocate to other less risky mountain areas,’ he said.

Although these recommendations were sent to the government authorities a number of times, nothing much was done to implement these.

‘We need to understand that the CHT region lies on a highly active geological plain with continuous rearrangement in the geological status,’ says Aftab. ‘There is also no uniformity in the geological status,’ he adds.

‘When the saturation point for strain accumulation is reached at any point, nature tends to release the strain through various mechanisms like earthquakes, landslides, mudslides etc. The cutting down of hills, the lack of trees and other problems are leading to the release of strains,’ explains Aftab.

‘The frequency of such disasters has increased ever since hill-cutting increased in this region,’ he says. He provides the example of the landslide that occurred around 1985 at the Nasirabad mountain area.

‘A trench was dug around the slope of the mountain which eventually exposed the soil on the top. After rainfall, the water made the soil move and there was a 60 feet landslide around the time. However, we were lucky that the area was not so developed at the time or else many would have been killed,’ he says.

He stresses that as the poorest people live underneath the mountains, the government can try to rehabilitate them or they can prevent them from living around ‘dangerous areas’ near these mountains. ‘This can be done conveniently if an Act is formulated,’ he says.

‘Also, retention walls can be constructed on the exposed hills or mountains which have been cut as preventive measure against these disasters,’ he urges.

‘Also, our disaster management bureau has the capacity to work against floods. However, more studies and research is required for the bureau to build its capacity on disasters like landslides, earthquakes and mudslides,’ said the geography department professor of DU.

‘We will initiate tree plantation drives and are encouraging tree plantation in the affected areas as pointed out by experts to curb these disasters in the future,’ informs food and disaster management minister, Mohammad Abdur Razzaque to Xtra, regarding the initiatives being planned. ‘Already the prime minister has ordered against living in the risky areas. We are taking necessary measures to solve the reasons behind these disasters,’ he adds.