A 40-year-old woman was killed after a landslide triggered by heavy rainfall buried her kitchen in the Jhorjhoripara area of Cox’s Bazar on Saturday night.
The deceased was identified as Rozina Begum, wife of Abdul Majid and a resident of Purba Kalatoli Jhorjhoripara.
According to local residents and Fire Service and Civil Defence officials, the incident occurred around 9:45pm when Rozina went to a kitchen located near a hill to prepare dinner.
Her husband Majid sustained minor injuries, but Rozina was trapped under the soil following the collapse. Two units of the Fire Service and Civil Defence, assisted by local residents, recovered her body after several hours of rescue efforts.
Majid said he had repeatedly warned his wife against going to the kitchen near the hill due to the risk of a collapse amid the heavy rainfall.
“I told her not to go to the kitchen because the hill could collapse. But she went to open the gas cylinder, and the landslide occurred in an instant,” he said.
He also alleged that he had previously requested neighbours living above their house to stop dumping water and remove risky bamboo structures, but his warnings were ignored.
At the time of the incident, the couple was in the back room of their house, while Majid’s father and young daughter were in the front room, he said.
Relatives of the victim claimed that the hill had become unstable due to several days of continuous rainfall and alleged that soil filling for a house on the hilltop had increased the risk of a collapse.
Abdul Gafur, Majid’s brother, said they had been living in the area since 1991 and had never witnessed a landslide before.
“Recent construction work and soil filling on the hilltop have created the dangerous situation,” he said, adding that their repeated requests for preventive measures were not addressed.
Syed Morshed Hossain, deputy director of Cox’s Bazar Fire Service and Civil Defence, said their teams responded immediately after receiving reports of a woman being buried in Jhorjhoripara.
He said continuous rainfall had made the hills across the district extremely risky and warned people against staying in vulnerable areas.
“The Fire Service is regularly using megaphones to urge residents to move to safer locations. However, many people return to these risky settlements due to livelihood concerns, increasing the possibility of accidents,” he said.
He urged residents not to remain in hilly areas during periods of continuous rainfall as the risk of further landslides remains high.
