42 dead in Bangladesh flash floods, landslide

At least 42 people have been killed by landslides and flash floods in southern Bangladesh and dozens more are missing, police and local officials said Tuesday.

The country's flood warning centre said that most of the country's southeast had experienced heavy rainfall during the past 24 hours, with 24.2 centimetres (9.5 inches) falling in many areas.

In the worst affected area of Teknaf -- which is on the border with Myanmar and home to tens of thousands of ethnic Rohingya refugees -- at least 25 people were killed and six missing, local official ANM Nazim Uddin said.
 
"All the roads are under water. We can't reach areas where thousands of people are trapped by the floods," he said by phone.

"Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in makeshift camps on the hills around Teknaf have been affected by the floods," he added.

At least 13 people, including six soldiers, have also died in the southern resort area of Cox's Bazaar, local police chief Nibhas Chandra Majhi said.

"We could not start rescue efforts yet as landslides triggered by the rains have clogged up the main highways," he said, adding that rescue workers expected the death toll to rise.
"And the rain is still pouring down."

A further four people -- all members of the same family -- were killed by a landslide in the remote Ghumdhum area, in the Bandarban hill district, local police chief Kamrul Ahsan said.

Weather officials have forecast further rains in the areas due to a major depression in the neighbouring Bay of Bengal.

Landslides triggered by heavy rains are common in Bangladesh's southeastern hill districts where thousands of poor people live on deforested hill slopes, ignoring government warnings about the risk of natural disasters.

The country has more than 200 rivers and is prone to severe flooding. It is the world's most densely populated country with over 1,000 people per square kilometre, but also one of the poorest.

Forty percent of the population live below the poverty line.

In 2007, more than 130 people died when their shanties were swamped by one of the heaviest landslides in the country's history.

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