Dhaka – At least 10 people, including eight children at a Rohingya refugee camp, have been killed in rain-triggered landslides in southeastern Bangladesh, officials said on Wednesday.
Rescuers recovered the bodies of eight Rohingya children from the debris after a hillside collapsed onto a madrasa (religious school) made of bamboo and tarpaulin at Camp 5 in Ukhiya, Cox’s Bazar district, amid heavy rainfall, said Dollar Tripura, a rescue official.
The students, mostly girls between the ages of nine and 15, were attending classes at the school, which teaches basic Koranic lessons.
Acting on information, local volunteers, law enforcement agencies, and the Fire Service and Civil Defence emergency department launched a rescue operation in the afternoon, said Nazmul Islam Bhuiyan, an official at the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC).
Camp officials said the landslide struck the madrasa while children were inside. Dil Mohammad, a Rohingya community leader, said he was informed that at least 30 children were in the school when the hillside gave way.
Tripura, local chief of the Fire Service and Civil Defence emergency department, said in the evening that the rescue operation had been called off after 14 injured children were transported to hospital for medical treatment. He confirmed that eight children had died in the landslide.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bangladesh said in a post on X that a major landslide in Camp 5 had struck an area housing a mosque and a madrasa. “Children were inside at the time of incident,” the post read.
More than 1.2 million Rohingya refugees live in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar after fleeing persecution in neighbouring Myanmar. Over 750,000 crossed into Bangladesh following a military crackdown in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State in August 2017.
Most refugees reside in makeshift shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulin, built on steep hillsides across the sprawling camp complex in the Ukhiya and Kutupalong areas.
During the annual monsoon, refugees face flooding and landslides, but many pay little heed to authorities’ warnings to move to safer ground.
Southeastern districts, including Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar, and other hill districts, have been battered by heavy rain in recent days due to a low-pressure system formed over the Bay of Bengal.
Vast swathes of land in these areas are now underwater, marooning millions of people.
Flooding of rail tracks has caused the suspension of train services between Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar.
In Chattogram, two children were killed in separate landslide incidents on Wednesday, police said.
Earlier on Monday, eight Rohingya Muslims and one local resident were killed in separate landslides in Cox’s Bazar.
