More relief as Sri Lanka flood toll rises

THOUSANDS of Sri Lankan troops battled yesterday to get relief supplies to nearly half a million people displaced by the island’s worst flooding for 14 years, which has killed 177 people.

The military said a lull in torrential monsoon rains allowed it to deploy planes, boats and ground troops to evacuate people from flooded areas, deliver essentials and recover bodies.

About 500 000 people have had to abandon their homes due to the heavy rains, which have brought flooding and landslides to large parts of the island.

Sri Lanka is regularly hit by flooding at the start of the annual monsoon.

But carpenter J H Siripala, 62, who lives in one of the areas worst hit, said he had never seen the flooding this bad.

“I have lived here for 27 years and we have gone through floods, but never this much water,” Siripala said from the Kalutara district, on the southwest coast, as a navy boat took him to safety.

“I thought it was my end,” he said as he recalled how the water level suddenly rose on Sunday, covering his head, before he was pulled to safety.

Dhanushka Fernando, 28, said his house was under more than 2.5m of water.

“We had floods in 2003, but not this much water,” he said.

In May 2003, 250 people were killed and 10 000 homes destroyed after a similarly powerful monsoon.

The official death toll rose to 177 yesterday, after soldiers dug out the bodies of a woman and a child from under tons of mud following a landslide in Ratnapura, the island’s gem capital.

The Disaster Management Centre said 109 people were still missing.

Nearly 2 000 houses had structural damage or had been completely destroyed, official figures showed.

A Mi-17 transport helicopter crash landed while trying to deliver food and other essentials to a marooned village in the southern area of Baddegama yesterday.

But air force spokesman Gihan Seneviratne said there had been no casualties.

Sri Lanka has deployed 1 800 soldiers and 1 100 naval staff, and sought international assistance, to evacuate people and ferry essentials to affected areas. – AFP