Farmers of Shingkhar gewog in Zhemgang are in a state of shock after landslides in the past week washed away about seven acres of cultivated paddy fields in their gewog.

The first incident occurred in Thajong on August 26. A farmer lost about an acre of cultivated paddy fields.
Three days later, on August 29, about four and a half acres of paddy were washed away in Dangapong, below Phungmathang dratshang. Seven households were affected by the landslide.

At least five persons were killed in separate incidents of landslides in Tanahun district, Saturday.
Reports quoted police as saying that three persons died after landslide in Chokchissapani VDC-9 swept away the house belonging to Nanda Prasad Joshi.
The deceased have been identified as Joshi's wife Sabitri, his 13-year-old son Shanker and neighbor Suman Luintel.
Likewise, landslides in Barbhanjyang VDC-8 claimed the lives of two persons -Deu Kumari BK, 63 and her daughter Chija, 27. Their bodies were found buried deep in mud. Three persons were also injured in the incident.

Loss from Sidr: The economic loss caused by super cyclone Sidr that hit Bangladesh on November 15, 2007, is more than us $ 4.4 billion, reveals a survey conducted by the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh. The cyclone completely destroyed about 4,10,000 hectares of farmland and damaged 12 lakh tonnes of the Aman paddy crop, which accounts for 40 per cent of the

At least 120 residents at Mugapatan of Kalikot district has been displaced by the landslip on Wednesday morning.
Some 20 people were displaced after the landslip swept away their residents and rest others were displaced due to the danger of the landslip.

Those displaced have been settled in the families of the armies.

The landslide which occurred due to the incessant rainfall has also blocked the road which joins the district headquarters.

Meanwhile, the Araniko Highway which was blocked from Tuesday due to the landslip has not resumed yet.

The government-formed Hill Management Committee has decided to immediately implement protective measures to prevent landslides and make the dwellings in foothill areas risk-free instead of going for large-scale evacuation.

On the basis of suggestions from the Technical Protection Committee, it decided at a meeting on Monday evening that hill regions would be made risk-free through development of retaining walls, afforestation, bamboo plantation and setting up physical barriers like sacks of sand and walkways.

AS IN the case of every human tragedy in Bangladesh, the death of 11 people, including six of a family, in a torrential rain-triggered landslide at Lalkhan Bazar in Chittagong city entailed quite an intense debate. Relentless hill-cutting was once again identified as the primary reason for the landslide and the relevant agencies of the government were once again blamed for their failure to effectively fight rampant hill cutting.

The authorities in Chittagong decided to launch a drive demarcate vulnerable spots with red lines and move the people from such spots by dismantling their houses on the hill slopes.
The drive is aimed at averting further landslides, officials said.
Fears for fresh landslides after Monday's incident in which 11 slum dwellers were killed at Motijharna at Lalkhan Bazar prompted the authorities to make the decision at a meeting with the commerce and education adviser, Hossain Zillur Rahman, on Tuesday.

The government initiated the process to mark hillsides and valleys, where landslides are possible, as "Red Zones", evacuate people living in those areas and bring those areas under afforestation.

The move comes a day after 11 people died in a mudslide at Matirjharna in Chittagong city.

Commerce and Education Adviser Zillur Rahman gave the necessary directives to authorities concerned in this regard during a meeting in Chittagong yesterday. The meeting was held at the local circuit house following Monday's rain-induced mudslide that killed 11 people.

THE death of eleven people in a landslide in Chittagong raises all our old concerns about the precarious way lives are lived in this country. The fact that huge chunks of mud from a hill descended on fourteen homes, part of a slum, and took the lives of two families would be called by fatalists as an act of nature against which people have hardly any defence. But in reality this was courted, thanks to fiddling with nature and imprudent choice of site for habitation with commercial interests thrown in.