Landslide kills Rohingya boy as monsoon hits shelters

DHAKA: A landslide triggered by heavy rain killed a three-year-old Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh, police said, the first casualty of the monsoon as wild storms wreak havoc in the crowded camps.

The young child was crushed in his sleep early yesterday when a mud wall collapsed onto his family’s shanty in Kutupalong refugee settlement, local police chief Abdul Khaer said.

“It was triggered by rain over the last three days,” Khaer said.

Kutupalong camp magistrate Rezaul Karim said about 300 shelters had been damaged and dozens of refugees evacuated since the first downpours of the rainy season began in earnest on Saturday.

“We relocated 20 families last night,” he said.

Aid agencies have been warning that the monsoon could unleash “an emergency within an emergency” for the close to one million Rohingya living in temporary shelters in southeast Bangladesh.

The district where refugees perch on steep hillsides in bamboo and plastic tents was hammered by 138mm of rain between Saturday night and midday on Sunday, Bangladesh’s meteorological office said.

The area is forecast to receive 2.5m of rainfall during this year’s monsoon – roughly triple what Britain gets in a year.

Last year, monsoon rains triggered landslides in Cox’s Bazar and the nearby Chittagong Hill Tracts, killing at least 170 people.

More than 100 died in landslides in the region in 2012, and two years earlier around 50 perished. — AFP