Father, daughter died when trishaw washed away by floods

The Mukalanyaya Village in the Wellawa Police Division was echoed with the crying by a woman whose husband and daughter died early morning on Saturday (4) after their three wheeler was washed away by Deduru Oya when passing through a flooded causeway.

The saddened and weeping mother was P. Kusumawathi. The two died in tragedy were her husband H.m.gamini Herath and daughter Rasmi Navodya (14), a grade 9 student of Wellawa Madya Maha Vidyalaya.

Gamini Herath (42) was a person engaged in collecting milk for the Pelawatta Milk Company allied to Gokarella Milk Collection Centre and he had left home early in the morning around 3.30 on Saturday with his daughter Rashmi and two other relatives in his own three-wheeler. They were on their way to attend to some religious observances at his wife’s relative’s house at Weeraketiya in Matara.

However Gamini Herath’s wife did not join this journey due to illness and had to attend to the daily routine of milking the cows.

When the threewheeler reached the causeway in Peddawa, the stream was filled with the gushing water following the heavy rain that was experienced in the area on Friday night. The causeway was about a few feet under the flowing water. Gamini would probably have thought that he was able to cross the waterway with his vehicle and wading through the floods assuming it was just sand while others were shouting not to cross.

Within a few seconds, the flash flood had washed away the vehicle into the stream until it disappeared in the water.

The two elder relatives had survived the tragedy.