The New Nation - Internet Edition

Chittagong Correspondent

The government is going to ban human habitation in most vulnerable foothills in the port city, Education and Commerce Adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman yesterday said while visiting the site of Monday's devastating mudslide where 11 low-income people died on Monday.

"The most vulnerable areas on the foothills will be red-marked and settlement in those areas would be barred soon," he said.

He ordered the local administration to identify those involved in making setting up illegal houses on the foothills.

He also said the mobile courts magistrates would be empowered to check the hill-cutting activities.

Hossain Zillur also declared Tk 4.25 lakh as compensation to the six affected families.

Later, he went round the devastated areas for a spot survey of the mudslide, which occurred little over a year after a devastating hill collapse had taken 128 lives.

Earlier in the morning, Hossain Zillur held a meeting with government officials at the Chittagong Circuit House.

According to the latest reports, rescuers recovered the bodies of four women, four children and two men from under a huge chunk of mud that buried their thatched homes on the foothills while they were asleep early Monday. An eleventh man died on his way to a hospital.

The mudslide destroyed 14 houses of a slum built on a hillside from which the government was relocating families apprehending the danger.

The Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) Mohiuddin Ahmed Khan led five-member probe committee started its investigation yesterday. On the first day it interviewed several residents of Hossain Colony and the adjacent slums where the tragic incident occurred. It will submit its report on Thursday.

Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) started evacuating people from the foothills under a crash programme. It already evacuated 1,200 people from the danger zone of the foothills in the port city yesterday.

The displaced people are initially being taken to an emergency shelter built at Lalkhan Bazar Government Primary School in the port city. The CCC will provide necessary food and temporary shelter to them free of cost, according to CCC sources.