Rising from Sri Lanka’s flood of destruction
An older resident carries a baby to safer ground as residents flee rising flood-waters at Kolonnawa. Pic by Indika Handuwala
Technology came to the fore in much of the rescue efforts this week as Sri Lanka grappled with the worst floods in at least two decades with several dead (still counting as this edition went to print) and a mighty week-long blow to the economy.
Facing a near tsunami -like disaster, the private sector executives and companies – themselves among the affected – stepped in to organise relief and volunteers much quicker than state agencies got off the ground in the crisis.
Technology – mobile phones, social media, e-commerce websites and others – helped not only residents marooned on first-second-or-third floor homes to communicate with the rest of the world but also secure help as fast as humanely possible.
Takas.lk, an e-commerce web, was one such example. The company partnered with FloodRelief Lanka to give aid to those who were displaced in Western Province with the funds being used for immediate relief such as water, food and medicine. It provided an avenue for individuals especially the Sri Lanka Diaspora to directly fund the activities to aid Sri Lankans who were in trouble. “Nearly 30 per cent of the funds collected for the victims came from both Sri Lankans and those abroad. This would not have been possible a few years ago. One of the other positives of what is being done is that the funds collected will directly go to the hands on people who need it the most,” Takas.lk founder and CEO Lahiru Pathmalal told the Business Times. Pickme.lk was helping the Defence Ministry to airlift critically affected people while Kapruka and many other apps were helping out..
Vast swathes of the areas surrounding Mattakkuliya, Peliyagoda, Kelaniya, Hanwella and Avissawella (essentially areas where the Kelani river flows) were flooded.
With most of the tea companies’ offices and warehouses located in these areas, tea authorities decided to postpone next week’s auction by a day. The Colombo Tea auction will now be held on Wednesday and Thursday (May 25-26), said Rohan Fernando, Chairman of the Tea Exporters Association (TEA). Work came to a standstill during the entire week, with work-day losses in addition to the cost of the damage which insurance companies will start assessing next week.
He said the area surrounding Peliyagoda-Ambatale-Mattakkuliya is a tea hub in close proximity to the Colombo Port. All the companies have been affected, either by machinery, computers and equipment being damaged or flood waters preventing workers access to the workplace. Many workers were on their own affected.
Mr. Fernando said the loss from damage to stocks in warehouses is not as high as earlier anticipated since most companies have modern racks where the bottom rack is six feet above ground level. In most areas the water level had risen to about 3-4 feet.
“The tea export industry came together to help each other in a big way in this hour of need. For instance some of our unaffected members offered facilities in their factories to competitors, for pre-auction related work. Everyone was pitching in,” he said.
However the worst affected by the floods are small businesses, which represent more than 90 per cent of Sri Lankan business units and are unable to access support and help, similar to bigger companies who have chambers to fall on.
Samantha Ranatunga, Chairman Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) and Managing Director/CEO of CIC Group, said the chamber and the National Platform of the Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management (A-PAD) were jointly assisting in relief and rescue work organized by the Disaster Management Centre.
“Economic activity has been badly affected in most areas in Colombo as workers are unable to come to work,” he said, adding that it was difficult to immediately assess the cost of losses to companies and the economy, which could run into millions of rupees.