Nabi Hossain helped many save their lives on that fateful day but lost most of his family members. And finally, he himself died of injuries.
The man, Nabi Hossain, 55, was critically wounded in Tuesday morning’s landslides in Rangamati. With his death yesterday, the toll from the disaster in the hill district stood at 115.
A driver by profession, Nabi Hossain of Notun Para in Rangamati municipality’s ward-6 was one of the first to alert his community members on Monday night about a possible landslide.
When landslides were about to begin, he urged all to move to safety over the loudspeaker from a local mosque and thus saving most of the people from 180 families in the area.
However, some 40 people of ward-6 were left dead in the tragedy. They include Nabi’s wife Hazera Begum, 45, daughters Ruma, 22 and Rina, 15, granddaughter Nuria, 4, and son Sohag, 13, and a house tutor. Another son Sumon and son-in-law Sohel Rana were badly injured along with him.
Talking to The Daily Star, Sumon and Sohel narrated how things unfolded that morning.
Both had been admitted to Rangamati General Hospital along with Nabi until Saturday afternoon.
From the hospital, Nabi was sent to Chittagong Medical College Hospital after his condition deteriorated on Saturday. He breathed his last at Eden Multi-Care Hospital in Dhaka around 9:30pm yesterday.
“When a sudden onrush of water was coming down from the hill, my father dug a trench for draining water. We were watching him work from our house,” Sumon said.
He was talking to this newspaper at his brother-in-law’s house in Tabolchhari Sarnotila area, some 5km from Rangamati town, yesterday afternoon.
“That night, my father did not sleep at all. After Fazr prayers, he heard a chunk of soil falling from an adjacent hill. He immediately went to the local mosque and started asking people over the loudspeaker to come out of their houses and take shelter at safe places.”
Nabi then came back to his family and asked all to get ready to leave. “We were about to go out of our house in two groups. Suddenly, a huge chunk of soil fell on our house and buried all of us,” Suman said.
“I was half buried and only heard the voice of my brother-in-law. My mother, sisters and brother died on the spot,” he said.
“While leaving the Rangamati hospital, my father urged me to forgive him. I said we have no complaint against him…. That was my last conversation with him.”
