(Photo credit : Dhaka Tribune )
"God! It's falling again!" cried my aunt. I rushed to her voice with two blurry eyes and one pounding heart. The scenario I witnessed that moment haunts me in nightmares to this date, a massive land collision happening in less than 4 meters right before me. But my visuals only saw the median amount of destruction The 2017 Landslide Of CHT brought with it as the worst was yet to be endured.
12 June 2017, the clouds seemed to have a weird sort of agony just about to break down. The drizzling transformed into a steady downpour after a follow-up of numerous hours of continuous rain(510 mm rainfall was recorded by NASA). Adding to the years of illegal hill cutting, the consistency of heavy rain was so acute that mother hill couldn't hold on anymore but breakdown. Overnight there were sirens of the Fire Brigade, Ambulances roaming around my town relentlessly(Rangamati, which had to endure the worst side of the landslide with 118 deaths). More than 150 people had to bear the consequences by sacrificing their lives in the whole CHT, with hundreds missing under mud. The electricity was out for several days, the food supply failed along with fuel. The linking road of CHT-RANGAMATI converted into a crater. It all looked like chaos arrived like an unwanted guest that unbounded to leave without showing its most destructive face.
Amid this suffering, When the continuous rainfall took a break for some time, some people stepped out to wipe the tears for others. People were seen coming out of their houses to offer help for the others as the help that government officials were providing wasn't even close to enough. Operated by local teams, food trucks were running on the road to lessen the pain and hunger for as many persons as possible. Small landslides were still taking place around the town, but the official personates didn't hesitate to take the risk to dig the mud and search for missing ones. Unfortunately, this risk cost the lives of 4 army men who got buried under while clearing slides.
Interview with a local recalling the landslide: "For the initial days, we couldn't take steps outside of the house for the downpour. We had to eat whatever was available in stock. My income comes from selling vegetables daily in the local Bazar. I was unemployed for several days as my planted crops were fully taken away by a flood. When I went to buy some food from the local shopkeepers, the price hike didn't allow me to fulfill the hunger for my family. As I lived in the rural areas, the roads were blocked with land, and the government officials couldn't reach out to offer any help as the streets were blocked by mud for vehicles. It took a long period for my family to recover from the losses."
This unimaginable flabbergasted catastrophe revealed the bouncing back spirit of CHT residents. They showed that they had no time to mourn cause hundreds of brothers and sisters were still missing. People residing close to the red zones of the landslide had to accept the deaths of their known contacts. One of the red zones includes the Jubonoyyon landslide, which later was rumored to sound with cries when locals walked on the Jubonoyyon road at night.
Overall the landslide offered an experience to the pessimum of human subsistence. But in the end, things started to move optimistically; the Sapchori road got partially fixed, transaction of utilities became stable steadily. Finally, The Mother Hills of Bangladesh commenced healing.
Written by Sushmit Chakma
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