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Floods,
landslides affect over 150,000 families The districts most severely affected at present are Polonnaruwa, Batticaloa and Ampara while in Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi districts which had earlier in the week witnessed heavy rainfall, water levels had been receding though intermittent rain continued. "Polonnaruwa, Batticaloa and Ampara seem to be the areas worst affected", Social Services Department Natural Disaster Management unit Director S. Hettiarachchi said yesterday adding the Social Services Ministry had allocated Rs. 9 million for flood relief. In Polonnaruwa, around 1,500 houses had been totally destroyed, 1,843 families displaced and over 25,000 acres of paddy totally devastated. "There has been no proper estimate of the extent of paddy and other cultivations destroyed. The lowest estimate we can make is that around 25,000 acres of land might be affected", Polonnaruwa District Secretary Ranjith Wijetilleke told The Sunday Times. The greatest damage in Polonnaruwa had been caused after the three main tanks in the district - the Parakrama Samudra, the Giritale tank and the Minneriya tank and over 200 other minor tanks overflowed forcing the authorities to open their sluice gates to let out the excess water. Transport has come to a complete standstill with the area between the Mahaweli B region and Polonnaruwa being the worst affected. According to District Secretariat sources Rs. 500,000 had been provided by the Social Services Ministry to provide dry rations worth Rs. 400 for a family of five in Polonnaruwa district. Batticaloa cited as one of the areas worst hit by the floods has experienced a rainfall of over 550 millimetres (22 inches) for the past week resulting in around 25 tanks overflowing. "While 62,000 families are affected and 4,000 families displaced, the amount provided as flood relief by the Social Services Ministry had been only Rs. 4 million, although the amount requested by the Secretariat for providing dry rations for three days for the affected families had been Rs. 15 million," Batticaloa District Secretary S. Shanmuganathan said. Meanwhile Ampara District Secretariat sources said 2100 houses have been totally destroyed and 73,000 families affected in the district. "We had estimated Rs. 17 million is required to provide dry rations for 50,000 affected families for a week but have received only Rs. 3 million", Secretariat sources said. In Ampara district the worst affected area is reportedly the Kalmunai division with 9,180 persons affected in the Muslim area and 5,750 in the Tamil area. In Anuradhapura district, although water levels are receding and rains lessening over 500 families in the Horowpotana area are affected with 101 houses totally destroyed after the town went under water last Wednesday. Residents claim eleven tanks in the area are in the danger of overflowing if more rains are expected. Meanwhile in Welimada in the Badulla district four persons have been killed and one injured due to landslides and around 500 persons displaced. The total number of affected families in the district is over 2,500, according to Badulla District Secretary Dhanapala Thanthirige. "People are moving out of their homes in fear of more landslides as rains are continuing intremittently", he said. In the Jaffna district around 2,300 houses are reportedly destroyed with 4,254 families affected. Although Jaffna has no irrigation system, around 900 water retention areas referred to as ponds have overflowed. "The drainage of water in the area is very slow and there are high water levels in Kopay, Chavakachcheri and Sandilipay areas", Jaffna Assistant District Secretary A. Sivaswamy said. In Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts nearly 30,000 families are reportedly affected. |
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