At least 16 people were killed and more than 20,000 marooned as heavy rains over the past week triggered landslides and floods in southeast Bangladesh, an official said Monday. Three landslides caused by torrential monsoon rains killed 10 people while six others drowned in swirling flood waters in southeastern Cox's Bazar district, said chief administrator Sajjadul Hasan. "Low-lying areas in the districts have gone under four-five feet (1.3-1.7 meters) flood water, stranding over 20,000 people," Hasan said. Several rivers in the southeastern hill districts burst their banks and caused the floods, officials said. A 3-month-old baby girl survived unhurt after a landslide destroyed her family's home Sunday in Teknaf, southern Bangladesh, killing her parents and two older siblings, an official said. Rescuers pulled the infant from the rubble of the family's mud and straw hut at the foot of a hill in Teknaf district, about 235 miles (380 kilometers) south of Dhaka, said Shubal Das, an official in nearby Cox's Bazar. The hut was leveled when earth loosened by heavy monsoon rains slipped down the hill, he said. The baby's father, Nurul Hashem, his wife and two older children aged seven and three died, said Shajjadul Hassan, a local government official. The baby, who was not immediately identified, was unhurt. She was being cared for by a neighbor, Hassan said. Bangladesh, which is criss-crossed by over 200 rivers, was hit by a major floods last year, when water fed by melting glaciers in the Himalayas and heavy rains inundated more than 40 percent of the land. More than a thousand people were killed in the floods, which left millions of people homeless and damaged infrastructure and property worth over a billion dollars.
