Scores dead in Bangladeshi landslides

DHAKA: Landslides triggered by heavy rain buried hillside homes in Bangladesh yesterday, killing at least 43 people with dozens missing, officials said.

The landslides in hilly districts in the southeast, killed 10 people in one village, eight in another and seven in a third, said police official Rafiq Ullah.

The death toll could go up as rescuers were searching for bodies and dozens of people were missing, he said.

Densely populated Bangladesh is battered by storms, floods and landslides every rainy season.

The latest fatalities came weeks after Cyclone Mora lashed Bangladesh’s southeast, killing at least seven people and damaging tens of thousands of homes.

In 2007, about 130 people were killed in a landslide in Chittagong in the southeast. – Reuters