Hopes of finding survivors under the mud and rubble of a landslide in south-central Sri Lanka yesterday had run out by first light, though a government minister cut the estimated death toll to more than 100 from 300 the previous night.
“I don’t think there could be any survivors,” Minister of Disaster Management Mahinda Amaraweera said, after visiting the disaster site in the tea-plantation village of Haldummulla, 190km from the capital, Colombo.
“It is about 100 people who have been buried as there were some children and some estate workers who were not at their houses at the time of the disaster,” he said, explaining why the death toll could be lower than feared on Wednesday.
Photo: Reuters
The Disaster Management Centre revised down its estimate for the number of people missing in Wednesday’s disaster to 192 from 300. Amaraweera said it was difficult to be sure of the number because population data was lost in the landslip.
The center said 150 houses were buried in the landslide, which stretched 3km and engulfed the village after days of heavy monsoon rains.
Children who left for school before the landslide returned to find their clay and cement houses had been buried. Nearly 500 people, most of them children, spent the night at a nearby school after warnings of further landslides.
At the disaster site, hundreds of soldiers and government officials resumed search and clearing operations, using three earth-moving machines that rumbled amid broken trees, blocks of concrete, tin roofing and muddied clothes.
Residents, many of them tea plantation workers, said as well as their homes, the area included a playground, a small shopping complex and a Hindu temple.
Many people in the hilly area are of Indian Tamil origin, descendants of workers brought to Sri Lanka under British rule as cheap labor to work on tea, rubber and coffee plantations.
In a nearby school, stunned survivors wept.
“I am still waiting for my daughter and her husband,” Ramalingam, 60, said, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“They were at their house in the 10th line and all the houses in that line are buried,” he said.
“Their son is alive because we took him to pre-school yesterday,” he added.
Vansanthi Kumari, a mother of three, lost her six-year-old daughter.
“My daughter and eight-year-old son went together to school. My son survived in a tree, but I’ve lost my daughter,” she said.
“We have found her body and it is in the hospital. I don’t have a place to keep her body,” she added.
She said authorities had given no warning of a landslide threat though some officials had encouraged her family to leave the area three years ago, but had offered no alternative.
National Building Research Organisation geologist Kelum Senevirathne said the area had been identified as landslide-prone and the villagers had been informed.
“Since the disaster, our officers have observed some cracks on the upper side of the land. So there is a risk of further landslides,” Senevirathne said.
Amaraweera said that villagers had been advised in 2005 and 2012 to move away, but many did not heed the warnings.
There have been a number of landslides since the onset of heavy rain last month resulting in damage to roads, but there had been no casualties until Wednesday.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
A South Korean judge who last week more than doubled former South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee’s prison sentence was found dead yesterday, police said. Shin Jong-o was found unconscious at about 1am at the Seoul High Court building, an investigator at the Seocho District Police Station in Seoul said. Shin was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he said. “There is no sign of foul play in the death,” the investigator added. Local media reported that Shin had left a suicide note, but the investigator said there was none. On Tuesday last week, Shin presided over 53-year-old Kim’s appeal trial, finding her guilty
RSS