Experts yesterday called for a proper investigation to find out the reason behind the worst landslide in the country’s history. The recent landslide killed at least 152 people, including four Army personnel, in the hilly areas of Chittagong Hill Tract (CHT) region. The experts attributed the landslide to deforestation and hill-cutting as the major factors while speaking at a seminar on ‘Combating Deforestation’, organised by the Department of Environment (DoE), at the DoE headquarters. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Rezaul Karim, former coordinator of the Asia unit of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), observed that a landslide was not just a natural disaster. “Man-made reasons also play their part in triggering it,” he said. Dr Karim said after the previous worst such disaster in 2007, in which a total of 127 people died in the CHT, the government had identified rampant deforestation and hill-cutting as the main culprits. “Ten years later, a bigger landslide disaster has taken place. It proves that very little has been done to check deforestation and hill-cutting,” he said. He demanded the government conduct a proper investigation and take appropriate measures. Istiaque Ahmed, secretary of the ministry of environment and forests, said the government would take necessary measures to check deforestation in the CHT. He, however, added that with limited manpower, it was difficult to conduct proper monitoring in the vast hilly areas of the CHT. Earlier, presenting a keynote paper on desertification, Dr Chowdhury Sarowar Jahan, Professor of Rajshahi University, noted that as the aquifer level in the Barind region in the north-eastern part of Bangladesh had been severely affected, there were chances of large-scale desertification in the area in the next few decades.
“It is believed that the groundwater table is falling rapidly and the whole region is in an acute state of deforestation, posing a serious threat to the public health and farming system,” he said. He noted that two decades ago, water was found at a depth of 8.76 metres, but now, no water is available above 12.95 metres. He said the whole Barind region was turning into an extreme drought zone because of the scarcity of water. This has been caused by the adverse impact of climate change and various other natural and man-made disasters. Prof. Jahan said the Bangladesh government should chalk out a plan to promote aquifer recharge for developing irrigation facilities through the optimum utilisation of available ground and surface water. Raisul Alam Mandal, the director-general of DoE, also spoke on the occasion.