Bangladesh’s hill communities take a ‘rain check’ on landslides  

Nearly 10 years ago, Fatema Begum's mother-in-law was buried alive in Bandarban's Lama upazila after a landslide struck the area. Inside Fatema's homestead, along with her mother-in-law were her son and two other children. 

Though the rest of the family members were able to survive, Fatema's mother-in-law did not make it. 

Bandarban Sadar's Mohammad Jihan was working on road construction in the hilly terrains when the landslide struck in 2017. The nearby hill, which had been cut steeply, collapsed on Jihan and his fellow workers.

Many were injured and Jihan broke his arms and legs. He was later admitted at Chattogram Medical College for six months. Jihan's brother, however, died in front of his eyes. 

Short spells of heavy rainfall, triggered by climate change, have made landslides a recurring disaster in the Chattogram Hill Tracts. Even though floods and cyclones have early warning systems, for landslides, there were no effective early warning systems. 

To reduce the number of casualties from landslides in the region, Caritas Bangladesh undertook the Supporting end-to-end landslide early warning and anticipatory action in Bangladesh (LEWS) project. 

Under this project, the organisation is working across 33 highly landslide prone areas across Lama and Bandarban Sadar upazila. In Cox's Bazar, the project is working at seven unions and two municipalities in Teknaf upazila. 

The primary aim is to link rainfall thresholds with landslide risks. 

Rezwana Sultana, coordinator of Anticipatory Action in Disaster Management at Caritas Bangladesh, said, "Basically, we need rainfall thresholds because, in the context of hills, the conditions vary significantly from one area to another. For each location, there can be differences in soil conditions, geology or lithology from one hill to another, and even meteorological conditions. These variations in hilly areas are often very sharp and dramatic compared to relatively flat or plain areas. 

"Therefore, knowing these localised thresholds is particularly important for experts and the technical teams responsible for issuing warnings and bulletins. These thresholds can provide them with more location-specific information and help them make more informed decisions about when and where a landslide warning should be issued," she further explained.

In fact, even within the same hill, the conditions can be very different — for example, the northern side may have completely different conditions from the southern side, according to Rezwana. 

"Therefore, we need to develop localised rainfall thresholds for individual areas that take these variations into account."

One of LEWS project's core aims is to provide clear information to at-risk communities about the potential perils of life, livelihood and property. 

"A good example of the community volunteer's actions can be the one in last July, when flash floods and landslides were highly active in the Chattogram region, including areas where Caritas was working. Despite the severity of the event, there were zero deaths in those areas." Rezwana Sultana, coordinator, Anticipatory Action in Disaster Management, Caritas Bangladesh

At the community level, instead of expecting people to understand complex technical thresholds, Caritas introduced colour-coded alert levels — red, orange and yellow — which are now overseen by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department. A situation with no significant risk does not require a colour code.

Based on these colour codes, community members are able to understand the level of risk quickly and decide their following course of actions accordingly. 

"An important part of our approach is that communities themselves are increasingly able to monitor rainfall. So, even if a formal red alert has not yet been issued, community members may already have enough awareness and experience to recognise changing weather patterns. For example, if they observe unusually heavy rainfall continuing for two consecutive days, they may understand that the risk of a landslide is increasing and that they may need to move to a safer location," Rezwana said. 

Young community volunteers measure rainfall every day at 6 am. 

But how does the initiative become community-driven? It is when the community members take ownership. Caritas hence introduced a community driven volunteer mechanism, where the young people of the community would take charge. 

Every day, it is the young community volunteers who measure rainfall at 6am. The data is shared via Whatsapp groups and integrated into Bangladesh Meteorological Department's database. 

"Technically, we do not have an extensive network or rain gauges in the hill tracts. But rain gauges installed by Caritas Bangladesh send the data on rainfall measurements to us on Whatsapp," said MD Momenul Islam, director, Bangladesh Meteorological Department. 

"We store the data in our data centre. This allows us to validate the specific rainfall pattern for a particular region,"  he added.  

Based on these analyses, the department issues early warnings for potential landslide risks. 

Community volunteer groups closely monitor these issues and organise emergency meetings. Necessary preparedness measures are taken according to the situation's emergency. The volunteers maintain constant coordination and communication with ward members, local disaster management committees, fire service and civil defence to ensure timely decision making and early response actions. 

The volunteers visit each at-risk household identified in the safe evacuation maps they prepared earlier, and share critical information with those households. 

Through five types of courtyard sessions, the volunteers have trained 2,000 highly vulnerable households on early action preparedness plans for landslides. Each family now has its own preparedness plan. 

Caritas Bangladesh trained a total of 403 volunteers who are always prepared and actively engaged in disaster preparedness, early actions, response, and recovery across the 33 communities. 

These volunteers  have also constructed access roads, stairways and bridges using locally available resources like bamboo, timber and geo bags. The aim is to ensure safe evacuation routes even before a landslide hits. 

Caritas Bangladesh trained a total of 403 volunteers who are always prepared and actively engaged in disaster preparedness, early actions, response, and recovery across the 33 communities.

"A good example of the community volunteer's actions can be the one in last July, when flash floods and landslides were highly active in the Chattogram region, including areas where Caritas was working," Rezwana said. "Despite the severity of the event, there were zero deaths in those areas." 

This is particularly significant because the wider Chattogram Division experienced around 400 landslides during that period, and 224 of those landslides occurred within Caritas working areas. 

"In other words, more than half of the reported landslides in the division occurred in the areas where we were working, which are also areas identified as highly vulnerable to landslides," Rezwana added.