A man holding a baby wades through a flooded road in Chattogram, Bangladesh, on Aug. 9, 2023. Bangladeshi soldiers were deployed on Tuesday to the country's Chattogram region, some 240 km southeast of the capital Dhaka, to tackle its worsening situation of torrential rains. Three incidents of landslides claimed at least six lives in Chattogram's Cox's Bazar district on Monday, which is now home to nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees who are living on the slopes of the hills.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

A man pushes a tricycle transferring people through a flooded road in Chattogram, Bangladesh, on Aug. 9, 2023. Bangladeshi soldiers were deployed on Tuesday to the country's Chattogram region, some 240 km southeast of the capital Dhaka, to tackle its worsening situation of torrential rains. (Photo: Xinhua)

 
Bangladeshi soldiers were deployed on Tuesday to the country's Chattogram region, some 240 km southeast of the capital Dhaka, to tackle its worsening situation of torrential rains.

Three incidents of landslides claimed at least six lives in Chattogram's Cox's Bazar district on Monday, which is now home to nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees who are living on the slopes of the hills.

Bangladesh's Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Mohammad Mizanur Rahman told Xinhua that "four Rohingyas were killed, and two others were injured in two separate landslides triggered by heavy rainfall on Monday."

In a remote hilly place of the Cox's Bazar district, two children were also reportedly killed on Monday evening when the wall of their house collapsed on them because of a landslide.

The Inter-Services Public Relations under the defense ministry said rescue operations with emergency relief and medical assistance are ongoing in the flood area.

Rahman said a total of 119 landslides occurred in the Rohingya camp areas and over 1,500 shelters were completely or partly damaged due to incessant rains, which have also lashed Bangladesh's seaport city Chattogram, inundating low-lying areas and disrupting road traffic.

The dwellers of low-lying areas of Chattogram have been facing waterlogging for days with roads, lanes and bylanes in parts of the country's premier seaport city going under ankle to knee-deep water, causing immense hardship to commuters.

A.K.M Nazmul Hoque, a senior meteorologist with the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD), told Xinhua Monday that an active monsoon has led to heavy rainfall in some areas in Chattogram.

The country's meteorological agency reported 322 mm rainfall, the highest in the Chattogram region this year, in the 24 hours until 6:00 a.m. local time on Monday.

Against this backdrop, authorities continued evacuating people from the hills at risk of landslides in Bangladesh's three southeastern districts of Chattogram, Bandarban and Rangamati.

Landslides are frequent in Bangladesh's hilly areas during monsoon, which usually runs from June to September, as land has been heavily deforested to grow crops and build new houses.

In June 2017, devastating landslides in Bangladesh's hilly southeastern region killed at least 125 people and damaged hundreds of homes.