Proceedings on International Conference on Disaster Risk Management, Dhaka, Bangladesh, January 12-14, 2019 Page | 435 A STUDY OF THE RECENT LANDSLIDE IN RANGAMATI REGION: CAUSES, IMPACTS AND EXISTING SLOPE PROTECTION MEASURES Alam T. A. 1 , Barua G. 1 ,Mahsin M. 1 , Abid Kamal 2 , Mazumder M.H. 3 and Omi F.R. 3* ABSTRACT Recent landslide in Rangamati has sparked discussions whether natural or anthropogenic causes or both were responsible for triggering devastating landslides in the hill tracts region of Bangladesh. The geological formation of hills in those areas, although not very young, is still in the process of degradation and reformation through weathering or other natural processes. Destabilization of hill slope may happen due to increased gravity load due to rainfall, other natural or anthropogenic actions on hill slope. In this backdrop, this paper aims at discussing observations of a survey done at selected locations of Rangamati where recent devastating landslides have caused immense loss of lives and properties. In this paper, Rangamati is chosen as the study area and information are obtained through a field visit survey on landslide affected areas. The study has found that the types of soil play a significant role while heavy rainfall, hill cutting, deforestation, unauthorized human settlements and faulty infrastructure construction act as a catalyst behind the landslide. This paper discusses some causes that induced the landslide in Rangamati region as well as to present an overview of the existing protection measures and the feasibility of these infrastructures to prevent landslide. Keywords: Landslide, Damage, Cause, Protection measures Introduction Bangladesh is one of the most disaster prone countries in the world (Khan, 2008). Due to the deforestation and unplanned urbanization, manmade disaster has now become one of the burning questions. Landslide is occurring frequently in the hilly regions of the country (Alam et al, 2005) especially in Chattagram region, a south-eastern part of Bangladesh (Ahmed et al., 2014). Rapid urbanization and human development activities such as, building and road construction through deforestation and excavation of hill slopes have increased landslide in densely populated cities located in mountainous areas (Galli and Guzzeti, 2007; Schuster and Highland, 2007).On June 12, 2017 heavy monsoon rain triggered a series of landslides in Rangamati, Chattagram and Bandarban - three hilly districts of Bangladesh - and killed at least 152 people (The financial express,2017). The worst-hit district was Rangamati, where landslides buried hillside houses while people were asleep (BBC NEWS, 2017). At least 20 separate landslides hit the district (The financial express,2017) and up to 105 deaths were reported as of 15 June (The Daily Star, 2017); 5000 homes were damaged(The Weather Channel, 2017). Roads in Rangamati remained inaccessible till 15 June (BDnews24.com, 2017) and district's power grid was also faced severe damage. Many roads in the district were washed away, leaving craters up to 15 meters (50 feet) deep, or heaped with debris (The Daily Star, 2017). Methodology The primary information has been collected by conducting field survey in Rangamati. The road side interview has been made during the survey while the hotspots of the June landslide were identified by using GPS and ArcGIS was used for data analysis. The different types of data have been used in this study such as rainfall data, land use patterns, Digital Elevation Model (DEM 30m) and soil data. Rainfall data has been collected from Bangladesh Metrological Department (BMD) and NOAA 3 hourly real time data. Thematic Map (TM- 4) has been collected from earth explorer while the soil data has been collected from Soil Resource Development Institute (SRDI). The different types of soil map are shown in this study such as soil permeability, texture and soil nutrients etc. The DEM 30 m data was collected from Global Visualization Viewer (GloVis) and the DEM is used to derive the slope angle and the elevation of the area. The DEM is also used for hydrological analysis. To detect the vegetation level of this area land use pattern was used and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is used to detect the vegetation level. ArcGIS-10.2 software is used to analyze the reason of landslide of Rangamati. 1 MSc. Student, Dept. of Disaster & Environmental Engineering, CUET, Chittagong-4349, Bangladesh 2 Research Assistant, Asian Development Bank, Bangladesh 3 Assistant Professor,Dept. of Disaster & Environmental Engineering, CUET, Chittagong-4349, Bangladesh * Email of Corresponding Author: farahomi@gmail.com