Landslides and Its Preparedness in Chittagong

In the recent 7 years, Landslide has become one of the most frequent happening disasters in the port city, Chittagong. Landslide is one of those precarious natural disasters that have put Chittagong in a menace. For ADPC project I choose Landslide as the topic of my report to explore the causes of Landslides, how this dangerous catastrophe endangers our community and how the community should actually be prepared for this disaster.

According to USGS, “The term landslide includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rock falls, deep failure of slopes, and shallow debris flows. Landslides are mainly caused by excessive rainfall, earthquakes, and changes in ground water and sometimes change of a slope by manmade construction. Not every time it is occurred by natural reason, for sometimes it can also be initiated by manmade hazardous actions. Besides, Landslide can also occur because of the non-engineered construction, non-engineered excavation and deforestation that lead into soil erosion.

Bangladesh is a country of alluvial lands, so is Chittagong and that probably is one of the most significant reasons that contribute to the occurrence of landslides in the hill tract areas of Chittagong recurrently and causes massive damages in the hillside areas often.

Landslide was not considered as a crucial endangering disaster in Chittagong before. However, promptly it has been esteemed as a major disaster in Chittagong since 2007. Landslide caused enormous damages during the year 2007 due to excessive and heavy rain in June 10-11.

By reason of this gigantic moisture, hill tracts became more alluvial and vulnerable, which resulted in landslides and mudslides over the poverty-stricken dwellers of hilly areas. This phenomenon caused a huge damage in six areas of Chittagong cities and different regions of the district. More than 123 people had been reported dead because of this landslide of Chittagong.

Additionally, landslides generate numbers of damages where it takes place. Such as, Economical loss, infrastructure damage, losses of lives, changes in the surface landscapes, destroying houses and damaging transportation systems.

As stated in British Columbia website, landslides cause property damage, injury and death and adversely affect a variety of resources. For example, water supplies, fisheries, sewage disposal systems, forests, dams and roadways can be affected for years after a slide event.

The negative economic effects of landslides include the cost to repair structures, loss of property value, disruption of transportation routes, medical costs in the event of injury, and indirect costs such as lost timber and lost fish stocks.

According to a victim of landslides, these catastrophic mudslides had taken their home to nowhere; they became homeless and their loss was beyond dimension. So this is what precisely happens in Chittagong hill side areas when it gets invaded by landslides.

Literally it appears to be more significant than anything to create awareness and the sense of preparedness among the people of this community. Since landslides have become more important disaster to put concentration on, raising awareness can only be the impeccable step to spread the knowledge of disaster preparedness.

After interviewing a victimized people, I came to know about their knowledge in the field of preparedness and their assumption about how prepared actually they are. Later experiencing such calamities, as a victim, they only talked about moving their house beyond the area of a hill tract site. Moreover they added, being more careful about the areas and avoid the places where it might happen during the heavy rainfall as their primary preparedness. It was not so adequate and also not so insufficient as a matter of fact.

Of course they shared their opinion on the base of their experience and knowledge. But I suggest something more practical to be noted as a precaution.

Government need to be more conscious about preventing this heinous disaster, landslides, by forbidding deforestation and non-engineered construction. Dwellings should be moved away from the mountain edges during the rainy season and cutting hill down should be strictly prohibited.

As we know, it is not about the natural reasons all the time that causes landslides, some manmade actions are also responsible in this fact. Moreover, preparedness should be taken not only before the disaster, but also during and after the disaster.

This is the main theme of disaster preparation cycle. Firstly, making people aware and conscious about their livings near to the edge of hill and spread knowledge regarding disaster preparedness among them would have to be the primary precaution.

Secondly, during the heavy rain fall, helping as much people as possible from moving away on the other side of the hill in a shelter home to save a good amount of lives would be the ongoing preparedness.

Finally, after the disaster happened, it’s the foremost action to start preventing the causes that helps landslide to occur. Such as, starting a technical system that would build awareness among the hillside dwellers through radio, television or physical announcing. It should be done by sending short message service to the dwellers of this city using a particular mobile network or it should be evangelized in radio or TV news immediately.

Frequent landslide happening areas should be constructed safely again and would have to be free from danger by removing dwellings still standing near.

Rehabilitation is another most important segment for conducting preparedness all over the city. Injured dwellers would have to be taken care of and moved in a safer place that is enough away from the places of landslides.

Government and the people have to be more reactive about it. We, the generation of youth, have a lot to do for the preparedness of disaster by volunteering and letting ourselves be active on preventing disasters that is taking away lives on a yearly basis.

Disaster preparedness is one of the most customary and important topic of Asia. As Asia continent is highly endangered by various disasters, so it appears to be very significant to take precautions and preventive actions for it. Landslides is one of those frequent attacked disasters that harms Asia as well as other continents, and Chittagong, one of the cities from Bangladesh is often victimized by it.

So it is definitely productive to take precautions, ongoing processions and rehabilitation as a part of disaster preparedness to turn Chittagong city into a safer place than before.