Sri Lanka: picking up the pieces when your world has been washed away
Families struggle to find hope after losing everything in flooding and landslides
Recent devastating flooding and landslides in Sri Lanka barely made a blip on the radar of the international news networks. As headlines around the world continue to be saturated with news of politics, famine, war and natural disasters, trying to grasp the sheer human tragedy experienced in any single disaster can be a major challenge for those who are not directly affected.
For those who lost everything in Sri Lanka, the one question they have is: with the eyes of the world turned away, where will the help they need to recover come from?
Chandani was at work on the morning of 26 May, at a local tea factory in the small village of Kotapola in Matara district, southern Sri Lanka. Her husband was at home looking after their two young children.
The monsoon rains had started days earlier and flooding had already affected several of their friends and neighbours. Living high on the forested slope of a hill overlooking the village, the home that Chandani and her family had shared for 10 years seemed safe from the effects of the rains.
However, while Chandani was working, a landslide — or, to be more accurate, a river of mud, trees and debris — swept her home and family away. She lost everything. The body of her youngest child was recovered several hundred metres from where her house used to stand. Her husband, her older child and her aunt have still not been found.
The same landslide, covering over 12 km, completely destroyed 7 houses and killed 24 people from her village — only ten bodies have been recovered so far.
Those who survived took shelter in a nearby school, along with hundreds of others affected by the flooding. The government set up an emergency assistance centre and, at the height of the emergency, 562 people from 157 families were sheltering there.
A week after the worst of the flooding, 131 families had left, either to return to their homes or to seek alternative shelter with family and friends. Those remaining had either lost their homes completely or were unable to return because the government had determined that their homes, though undamaged, were at risk of destruction.
Pradeep and her husband have four children. The youngest is 2 months and they also have a 2 year old and two children over 13. Their home was not damaged but they were evacuated for safety reasons, and don’t know when they will be able to go home.
They are getting basic food assistance but miss being able to give their children healthy alternatives like eggs and fruit.
When other people were asked how long they expect to be there or how they will rebuild, the uniform response was one of despair and uncertainty.
“This happened over a week ago,” said one man whose house was partially damaged by the landslide. “So many people have come to look at the damage, but nobody has actually done anything to help.”
This is just a snapshot of one village among hundreds affected, a few hundred people among hundreds of thousands. A preliminary assessment of the effects found that up to 75,000 people were in urgent need of assistance, with 495,000 more people moderately affected and 565,000 indirectly affected by flooding and landslides.
A total 206 people were confirmed dead with at least 92 people missing and 68,730 people temporarily displaced to 365 camps, operated by district governments. Two major towns were completely inundated, over 8,000 houses were destroyed or damaged, and roads throughout the affected area were washed out.
To add to the burden faced by the Government of Sri Lanka in responding, while the flooding and landslides had a devastating impact across the south, many districts in the north are still suffering the effects of the region’s worst drought in 40 years.
The harvest in March this year (or Maha harvest) was less than 50 percent of normal production, with 900,000 people suffering from food insecurity and 25,000 severely food-insecure people in the four worst-affected districts still in need of urgent assistance.
As an immediate response, WFP handed over 22.5 metric tonnes of dhal, enough to feed 75,000 people in temporary camps for three days.
WFP is also expanding its ongoing drought emergency support to provide cash assistance through the government social safety net scheme, known as Samurdhi. This is intended to target the 75,000 most vulnerable people in the hardest-hit flood areas for a two-month period. In order to do so, WFP is seeking additional funding from donors.
While no amount of money can bring back the lives of those lost, and rebuilding will take time and continued Government support, this cash assistance will be a first step on the road to recovery for those worst affected by the recent disasters.
Story by Jeanne Spillane. Interviews conducted with help of Naary Maxella, WFP Sri Lanka.
