Sri Lanka steps up relief as toll exceeds 150

Colombo, May 28: Emergency teams rushed food and water Sunday to half a million Sri Lankans displaced by the island’s worst flooding for more than a decade, as the death toll climbed to 151.

Government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said relief operations had intensified following a break in the monsoon rains, with medical teams reinforcing hospitals in affected districts.

The official death toll had climbed to 151 with 111 people still listed as missing, Senaratne said. Another 95 were in hospital.

“Aid is now getting into the remotest areas which remained inaccessible in the past two days,” Senaratne told reporters, adding there were help lines people could call if they needed assistance.

Most victims were killed by landslides, not the flood waters, as their homes on hillsides were buried under torrents of mud and rock. Nearly 2,000 houses were damaged or destroyed. Almost half a million people had been forced from their homes and were sheltering in government buildings or with friends and relatives.

The floods and landslides in the south and west of the island were the worst for 14 years.

Water levels in Ratnapura, Sri Lanka’s gem district east of Colombo, had subsided but many villages in Kalutara south of the capital were still under water, officials said. — AFP