Mudslides claim five lives in Bangladesh

Five persons, including four children, were killed in two major incidents of rain-triggered mudslides in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district, police said on Wednesday.

The children -- three girls and their only brother -- were buried alive after huge chunks of mud collapsed on their house on the slope of a hill, Xinhua quoted police officer Farid Uddin Khandaker as saying.

The children's mother narrowly survived the mudslides that occurred early on Wednesday when the children were asleep, he said.

The body of a woman was recovered from another place in the district, he added.

Many dwellings in the district and elsewhere in the country were reportedly damaged in rain-triggered landslides that are frequent in Bangladesh's hilly areas during monsoon seasons.

At least 153 people were reported killed and hundreds of others injured in the landslides that devastated five districts in Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh in June last year.

--IANS

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