Record monsoon in Sri Lanka causes massive flooding and landslides, with 151 dead, 112 missing, more than 440,000 affected

Desdemona Despair

28 May 2017 (Daily Mirror) – The number of deaths reported in floods and landslides was increased to 151 while 112 people had gone missing, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said on Sunday.

In its latest situation report, the DMC said the adverse weather condition had left 52 people injured. In total, 442,299 people of 114,124 families had been affected by the weather calamity.

The South-West monsoon unleashed torrential rains, which ravaged fourteen districts in the western and southern parts of the country on Friday and Thursday.

The disaster is described as one of the worst-ever calamities since the 2003 floods. [more]

Weather calamity: Death toll rises to 151

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, 27 May 2017 (Agence France-Presse) – Flooding and landslides killed at least 92 people and left another 110 missing in Sri Lanka as the monsoon set in Friday, May 26, dumping record rainfall in many parts of the island, authorities said.

The official Disaster Management Centre (DMC) reported that over 60,000 people were driven out of their homes in the south and western parts of the country.

“There are some areas where we are unable to reach, but relief operations are under way,” deputy minister for disaster management Dunesh Gankanda told reporters in Colombo.

Officials said the toll rose to 92 dead, including a soldier who fell to his death from a helicopter while trying to pull a marooned villager to safety. Another 110 people remain missing. […]

The latest flooding was the worst since May 2003 when 250 people were killed and 10,000 homes destroyed after a similarly powerful Southwest monsoon, officials said.

In the early hours of the day a mountainside collapsed on a women’s hostel at a tea plantation at Neluwa in the island’s south, killing at least 7 women, police said.

DMC officials said the monsoon had been expected on Thursday night, May 25, and ended a prolonged drought that had threatened agriculture as well as hydropower generation.

The rains filled the reservoirs used for hydroelectric projects after low supplies had raised fears of power shortages in June.

But officials said most reservoirs were now so full they were in danger of spilling over and flooding communities living downstream. [more]

Floods, landslides kill at least 92 in Sri Lanka