Me & June 11…..when mudslides turn Chittagong into city of death

It was June 11, 2007. I woke up late as usual and discovered myself in a changed nature. My four-storey house at Chandgaon R/A was surrounded by chest-level water which I had never seen in my hometown Chittagong, the commercial capital of Bangladesh.

I knew it had been raining at night and it had continued into the day causing the unusual flooding. By this time, I received three calls from my colleagues and one from my younger brother. There were huge mudslides in some parts of the city and its outskirts, I was informed over phone. I started for the spot immediately.

The entire city was under chest-level water. I went back home and changed into short pants. I took pen, notebook and cell-phone in a polythene-wrapped small bag and started swimming desperately to reach the spot of the mudslides. In the meantime, I talked to my Bureau Chief Mr Hafiz Inam Imam over phone. He lived in a ground-floor apartment and was badly affected by the flood. He told me that he would not be able to rush to the office.

After swimming nearly one and half-kilometer on the highway I reached the spot. On the way to I saw two children being washed away in the floodwater. They were, however, rescued by the local people.

I reached one of the spots – Motijhorna and found firefighters, police, locals even military people struggling (country was under military-controlled caretaker government at that time) to rescue residents who were trapped inside mounds of hill-mud. By the time they were dug out, all of them were dead.

Later, I received another call from Rony, an intern working with me in The Bangladesh Observer, and he informed me of the number of people killed in other areas of Chittagong.

I passed entire day by visualizing what it might have been like. I spent sometime in interviewing officials.

In the evening, Rony joined with me and we went back to office but there was no electricity. We started looking for a cyber café. Finally, we found one at Central Plaza near GEC intersection which was still working with the aid of power generator. I started composing the story. By 9pm we sent our news to Dhaka central desk by email.

The heaviest rainfall in quarter of a century saturated the hillsides in and around the city giving residents no chance to escape when a tide of mud and water swept down on their homes in the early hours of that day burying whole families under mud and debris while they slept. The powerful current simply washed many others away. The death tool reached 132, including at least 59 children, more than 150 were injured.

The next morning was apparently blended with joy and sorrow for me. My story was placed as ‘Lead Story’ of the day in The Bangladesh Observer covering 7 columns of the page. But moments later, my joy disappeared when the dead bodies came into focus…….It was unforgettable.

The way I've become a journalist…initial days...

In Bangladesh students have little freedom to choose their subjects at the university level. My case was no exception. When I decided to read journalism, I found all my family members, especially my brothers and sisters, against me. When I decided to take up journalism as my career after university, they again stood in my way even though it is an exciting profession. It may not sound nice that I had to struggle a lot against the will of my family but it is true.

My father, an educationist who fought against poverty throughout his life, unfortunately passed away before completion of my High School graduation. Then my mom and elder brothers took care of me and my education.

They wanted me to grow up as a learned man so that I could be a first-class public servant. According to their plan, they did not encourage me to take up journalism as my university major at the graduation level which I had long been dreaming of studying.

I was a student of Commerce at the Higher Secondary level. So, my elder brother had wanted me to read Business Administration (BBA). But upsetting my family members, including my elder brother, I got enrolled in the Department of Communication and Journalism (then Journalism Department) under the University of Chittagong, a known place to me and my family from which my father completed his MA in English Literature as its first batch student.

Soon after my admission into the desired department, I virtually stepped into my long-cherished dream of becoming a journalist which I could never give up for a single moment.

On completion of my first three months of four-year graduation course in Journalism, I expressed my eagerness to get attached with a newspaper to gather experience of practical journalism. I shared my zeal with the then departmental head – Ali Asgar Chowdhury -- who liked me much.

It was a fine sunny morning ….when I received a verbal proposal to be a newsroom intern at Chittgaong Bureau of the country's oldest English daily – The Bangladesh Observer.

Mr. Ali Asgar Chowdhury was the gentleman who conveyed me the message. I did not think twice to grab the much-expected offer. The following day, I visited the Bureau of the national daily in time to meet its Bureau-in-Charge Mr. Hafiz Inam Imam, the first Bangladeshi fellow of World Press Institute (WPI).

He was convinced after a brief discussion between us and allowed me to start work immediately through converting a news item into English from a Bengali-written press release. The news-item was duly published in the newspaper the following day which apparently gave reality to my dream of stepping into practical journalism.

Now a blogger

I am starting blogging today.............hope to continue forever