Mayor blames hill cutters for disaster

Rangamati municipality Mayor Md Akbar Hossain Chowdhury has blamed hill cutting and logging in the hills for the disaster that has already claimed 105 lives there.

“The hill cutters are to blame. They cut hills illegally and establish settlement,” the mayor told The Daily Star today. “We try so hard to stop them, but things are complex here.”

It was Bangladesh’s worst series of landslide in a decade, triggered by torrential downpour, that claimed a total of 143 lives in the hilly regions of Chittagong division.

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“A few days ago we had lots of rain and thunder strikes during a cyclone. The soil was already softened. After the recent bout of rain, the soil gave away,” Mayor Akbar said.

According to him, a total of 900 people have already been taken to 14 shelter homes. District authorities are still putting their backs on evacuating others living riskily.