Author: Pramudith D Rupasinghe

In the early hours of July 6 this year, while most of Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar of Bangladesh slept, the hillsides of Camps 7, 11 and 15 gave way. Eight people died beneath the mud—among them a seven-year-old boy, a married couple with their four-year-old son, and a woman buried alongside three children aged thirteen, five and three. Two days later, another slope collapsed onto a madrasa during classes, killing at least five children while they were attending lessons. The Bangladesh Meteorological Department, with the weary precision of an institution that has issued this forecast many times before, predicted more…