At least 37 dead, hundreds of families feared buried in Sri Lanka landslides
ELANGAPITIYA VILLAGE, Sri Lanka — Soldiers and police used sticks and bare hands Wednesday to dig through enormous piles of mud covering houses in three villages hit by massive landslides in central Sri Lanka, with hundreds of families reported missing.
By evening, rescuers had pulled 17 bodies from the mud and debris unleashed by several days of heavy rain across the island nation. Officials said at least 37 people had been killed, but the extent of the tragedy was still unclear. The Sri Lankan Red Cross said at least 220 families were unaccounted for.
“The task is to figure out what happened to them,” the Red Cross said in a statement, noting that some people may have left after local officials warned earlier this week of possible landslides.
Heavy fog, rain, electrical outages and the loose ground were complicating efforts to search for survivors. As night fell, the rescue operation was suspended until dawn. Officials warned that, with rain still falling, more landslides could occur.
Villagers said torrents of muddy water, tree branches and debris came crashing down around their homes Tuesday in the three villages, located at different heights on the same hill in Kegalle District, about 45 miles north of Colombo.
“I heard a huge sound like a plane crashing into the Earth,” said A.G. Kamala, 52, who had just returned to her house in one of the villages, Siripura, when the landslides hit. “I opened my door. I could not believe my eyes, as I saw something like a huge fireball rolling down the mountain.”
Near the village of Elangapitiya — furthest down the hill — soldiers carried bodies to a school, where families waited for news of missing loved ones.
Farmer Hewapelige Lal said he had identified the body of his nephew, but that 18 other relatives were possibly buried under the mud. He and his wife had left their home to take fruit to a daughter who lived elsewhere, but at some point his wife turned back.
“That was the last time I saw her,” Lal said, sobbing. When he heard of the landslide, he rushed home but found the area covered with thick, heavy mud. “All I could do was scream.”
Officials could not give the populations of the villages of Siripura, Elangapitiya or Pallebage, but such villages typically include 1,000-1,500 residents.
Local media said President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visited the disaster sites earlier Wednesday.
The same rains that unleashed the mudslides also caused flooding in cities including Colombo, the capital, where tens of thousands of homes were at least partially inundated.
Sri Lanka’s disaster management center reported 11 deaths from lightning strikes and smaller landslides elsewhere in the country on Monday and Tuesday.