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.