5 killed, 2 injured in rain-triggered landslide incidents in Bangladesh

Five persons, including four children, were killed and two others injured in two rain-triggered landslide incidents in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district, about 292 km southeast of Dhaka, a fire brigade official said today.

In the first incident that took place in the Cox's Bazar town, when four children -- three girls and their only brother -- were buried alive while asleep, when a huge chunk of land collapsed on their house, situated on the slope of a hill, early this morning.

The children's mother narrowly survived the mudslides, assistant director of Cox's Bazar Fire Service, Md Shafayet Hossain said.

The rescuers pulled the four children unconscious from a pile of mud and rushed them to Cox's Bazar General Hospital, where they were declared dead, the official was quoted as saying by the bdnews24.

In the another incident, a six-year-old boy died while his father was injured after they got trapped in their house after being hit by mudslide in Ramu Upzila of Cox's Bazar district, Hossain said.

Coastal areas of Bangladesh, including Cox's Bazar, had been witnessing heavy rains for the last three days. The Met office has also warned of possible landslides due to the downpour.

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 156 people were reportedly killed and hundreds of others injured in the rain-triggered landslides that devastated Chattogram, Rangamati, Bandarban, Cox's Bazar, Khagrachhari and Moulvibazar districts in Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh in June last year.