As if the season of death has returned to the hills. Much like the global climate crisis, this disaster is also man-made. It is a structural murder. Neither the state nor the neoliberal system can escape blame. The root cause is the brutal slicing of hills and the forced change of their topography. It is no secret how or by whom this injustice continues to be carried out.
Back in 2007, I wrote, "Unless hill cutting stops, the procession of deaths will not." For nearly two decades, the state has continued to deny the science of hills. Across the country, hills have been cut, carved up and devastated. Mountain ecosystems and natural landscapes have been destroyed.
Poor, landless people from the plains, unfamiliar with life in the hills, have been pushed into these areas to serve demographic politics. Commercial plantations of teak, tobacco and acacia, species alien to hill soils, have replaced native vegetation.
The deep spiritual, ecological, and cultural bond between indigenous communities and the hills have never been recognised. Instead, hills have increasingly been treated as mere piles of earth or as sites for infrastructure and commercial development. This deeply capitalist view of the hills continues to trigger one landslide after another, burying both lives and memories.
In the last four days alone, landslides across Bandarban, Cox’s Bazar and Chattogram have claimed 29 lives. Floodwaters have submerged the Kabakhali section of the Dighinala–Sajek road, forcing people to cross by boat. Tourists are stranded in Sajek. Train services to Cox’s Bazar are suspended. Chattogram city is drowning.To prevent further accidents, the Forest Department has temporarily banned visits to all waterfall sites in Mirsarai, Chattogram.
But these are not ecological solutions. Raising railway tracks, imposing travel bans or relocating people from high-risk areas will not save either the hills or human lives unless the underlying causes of landslides are addressed. Those responsible for creating these dangerous conditions and the forces that enabled them must be held publicly accountable.
The tragic legacy of landslides
One of the deadliest landslides in Bangladesh's history occurred on 11 June 2007. Triggered by relentless rainfall, landslides in Chattogram's Lebugagan, Kusumbagh and University areas, as well as in Bandarban, claimed the lives of more than 130 people.
On 6 July 2008, four people were killed in landslides in Cox's Bazar. Army personnel working on the Cox's Bazar–Teknaf Marine Drive road project also lost their lives. A total of 14 people died in landslides that year. The death toll stood at three in 2009. On the morning of 15 June 2010, nearly 50 people were killed in landslides in Cox's Bazar and Bandarban. 17 people died in 2011, 28 in 2012, two in 2013, one in 2014 and six in 2015.
Landslides were not confined to only Chattogram Division. On 20 July 2008, the collapse of Kalapahar in the West Khasi Hills buried Bangladesh's Tahirpur border camp in Sunamganj, along with nearby cropland and homes, under massive amounts of hill sand.
Although no major landslide deaths were recorded in 2016, devastating landslides struck Rangamati, Bandarban and Chattogram between midnight on 12 June and the early hours of 13 June 2017, killing around 137 people.
Most landslides have occurred in settlements inhabited mainly by migrant Bengalis. The majority of victims have also been Bengalis. However, the 2017 disaster also claimed the lives of Chakma people in Rangamati and members of the Khiyang community in Bandarban, as they too had moved from their villages to live on unstable, cut hillsides near urban areas.
No family that has lost loved ones in landslides has received justice. Instead, the dominant narrative has been that the victims chose to live in high-risk, cut-hill areas. Even this year, police have said it is difficult to evacuate everyone from such risky locations to safer shelters. That raises a fundamental question, who is cutting the hills and making them dangerous in the first place and how are people being allowed to settle in these hazardous areas?
The psychological and spiritual relationship with the hills
Although hill tracts and hillocks exist in Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Sherpur, Mymensingh, Cox's Bazar, Netrokona and Jamalpur, the term ‘hills’ in Bangladesh is commonly associated only with the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Dr Saidur R. Chowdhury classified the hills of Chattogram Division into 18 hill ranges or ridges. Building on that work, Ziaul Haque published Pahar Shumari (Hill Census) in 2022, covering hills across the country. According to the census, Bangladesh has a total of 282 hills, with the highest number (37) in Sylhet Division, followed by 36 in the Sitakunda Ridge of Chattogram.
The country's tallest peaks, including Saka Haphong (Mowdok Mual), Dumlong (Mukhra Thuthai), Keokradong and Tajingdong in Bandarban, have not collapsed.
For many Indigenous communities, the hills have deep spiritual and ecological significance. They are regarded as sacred living entities, around which countless folktales, songs and traditional ecological knowledge have evolved. When plans were made to build a Marriott hotel on Chimbuk Hill or when Lama Rubber Company destroyed parts of Soroi Hill, members of the Mro community risked their lives in protest.
Their resistance stemmed from their spiritual beliefs. Sacred stones are believed to exist in hill streams and disturbing them is thought to bring famine and epidemics upon society.
Who will listen to the call of the hills?
Those who cut hills or who migrate from the plains to settle on unstable, cut hillsides generally have little understanding of the traditional ecological knowledge associated with these landscapes. To outsiders, hills are often seen merely as mounds of earth, mining sites or tourism assets. This is where the fundamental conflict over landslides begins.
In many cases, hillsides are cut at slopes steeper than 45 degrees, while forests and tree cover are destroyed. Under the banner of ‘development’, the hills themselves are sacrificed. Consequently, prolonged heavy rainfall causes these degraded hills to collapse.
Legal enforcement to protect hills remains weak at the local level. In one instance, a forest official was even killed while attempting to protect them.
Simply evicting settlements from high-risk hillsides is not a sustainable solution. Protecting lives in these areas requires year-round disaster preparedness. Bangladesh also needs stronger state action to conserve hills and hillocks nationwide.
The traditional knowledge and resource management practices of Indigenous communities, whose lives have long been intertwined with the hills, could provide valuable guidance.
At present, Bangladesh has no dedicated national policy for hill conservation. While the Environment Conservation Act and building regulations prohibit cutting hills and hillocks without approval from the Department of Environment, a comprehensive National Hill Management Policy is essential if the continuing loss of lives and the destruction of hill ecosystems are to be stopped.