At least 12 people were killed and more feared missing Friday after three days of heavy rain triggered landslides near a slum in Bangladesh's port city of Chittagong, police said.

The victims were buried by mud while they were sleeping in their tin-roofed shanty houses in the southeastern city's Lalkhan Bazaar slum, which lies at the bottom of a hill, local police chief Abu Zafar Mohammad Omar Faruq told AFP.

"We told them to evacuate Thursday after weather officials warned the heavy rains might cause landslides in the hilly areas. Some refused to leave their homes, they were buried by mud as they were sleeping this morning," he said.

"So far we have recovered 12 bodies including eight women and a child. We fear some bodies are still under mud," he said, adding that army, navy and fire officials had been deployed to conduct a rescue operation.

At least seven shanty houses in the slum were buried by the landslides and up to five more people are believed to be missing, said Chittagong fire chief Ruhul Amin.

"But the slum residents could not say exactly how many people were living in each of the houses," he added.

Heavy monsoon rains of around 132 millimetres (5.2 inches) in 24 hours triggered the landslides, police chief Faruq said, adding that hundreds of people living in tin shacks on the slopes had been moved to safer locations.

In June 2007, landslides triggered by the heaviest rain in Chittagong in recent years killed at least 130 people.

earlier related report
Nepal warns of repeat of 2008 flooding disaster
Kathmandu (AFP) July 1, 2011 - A Nepalese river that flooded in 2008 forcing millions of people to abandon their homes in neighbouring India is threatening to burst its banks again, authorities warned on Friday.

At least 60,000 people in Nepal lost their homes in the 2008 Saptakosi river flood, but the devastation was far worse in neighbouring India, where the government said around two and a half million people were affected.

Many victims are still living in temporary housing.

Nepalese authorities said Friday that workers were battling to stop the swollen river breaching its embankments using sandbags and netting after heavy monsoon rains pushed water levels dangerously high.

"This is similar to the incident in 2008, when the river overflowed due to the monsoon rains and breached the embankments," said local official Manik Lal Shrestha.

"Only this time round, the damage could be worse, because the breach is likely to appear further up from the barrage, and the population has also increased," he added.

Shrestha said more than 100,000 people living in eastern Nepal would be affected if the embankments burst, adding emergency services had been placed on high alert.

The two countries traded blame for the failure of flood defences in the aftermath of the 2008 disaster, with Indian officials saying their efforts to reinforce the barrages were thwarted by Nepal.

Under a 1954 agreement, Nepal allowed India to construct the series of dams and spurs on the Saptakosi, which lies 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of the capital Kathmandu and flows down into the Ganges.

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