At least 24 people have died in landslides, wall collapses and drowning over five days of relentless rain and hill runoff in Cox’s Bazar, where vast areas of Chakaria, Pekua and Matamuhuri upazilas remain under water, officials and local sources said.
More than 500,000 people are still stranded across the district, though rainfall eased somewhat on Friday morning. The district’s two main rivers, the Bakkhali and the Matamuhuri, were flowing above their danger levels for a second day.
Of the 24 dead, 15 were killed in five separate landslides at the Rohingya refugee camps in Ukhiya, most of them children; five madrasa students died in a single landslide on Wednesday. The rest included two deaths in Cox’s Bazar town, three in Chakaria, and one each in Pekua, Ukhiya’s Moricchya area, Maheshkhali and Kutubdia. More than 20 people were injured.
In one tragedy, a dinghy carrying a family fleeing the floodwaters capsized in Chakaria’s Baraitali union on Friday morning, killing two young sisters, aged 13 and 7. Fire service divers recovered the bodies after an hours-long search; the girls’ mother and other siblings survived. “The family only wanted to reach a safe place,” said Kaisar Uddin, a member of the Baraitali union council. “But in the middle of the disaster, that journey became the greatest tragedy of their lives.”
Chakaria Fire Service and Civil Defence station officer Didarul Haque said a rescue operation was launched after a girl went missing in the capsize, and a body was recovered about four hours later with the help of a diving team brought in from Chattogram.
Continuous rain since Sunday has submerged homes, schools and rural roads across the district, badly disrupting daily life. Local sources said the worst-hit areas were villages in the Rajakhali, Magnama and Ujantia unions of Chakaria and Pekua. The administration and local sources said people in more than 100 villages across 35 unions had been marooned.
Nurul Islam, executive engineer of the Cox’s Bazar Water Development Board, said the Bakkhali and Matamuhuri were flowing above their danger levels of 5.79 meters and 5.80 meters respectively for a second day. No embankment had breached, he said, though floodwater had overtopped an embankment into Chakaria’s Konakhali union.
Cox’s Bazar Meteorological Office assistant meteorologist Abdul Hannan said 71 millimeters of rain fell in the 24 hours to 3 p.m. Friday, and 547 millimeters over the five days since Sunday.
Deputy Commissioner Md. A. Mannan said 648 shelters had been kept ready and a control room opened at his office to coordinate rescue, relief and emergency aid. He urged residents of low-lying and hill-adjacent areas to move to the nearest cyclone shelter or safe center and to stay alert until the weather cleared. Cox’s Bazar sea port was maintaining local cautionary signal No. 3, the district administration said, with heavy to very heavy rain forecast to continue.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report