Foreign aid gets to Colombo, toll 71

Foreign aid began arriving in Sri Lanka on Saturday, bringing help to half a million people forced out of their homes by rains and landslides that have killed at least 71 in a week of extreme weather wreaking havoc in South Asia.

Authorities said there could be more rain in Sri Lanka, where flood levels were slowly receding.

“I stayed back on the first floor of a neighbour’s flat after my house went underwater,” said Sri Lankan tea factory worker Kumarage Jayamini, 62, at a welfare centre in a Colombo suburb.

“The police and the Navy persuaded me to leave and they brought me in their boat,” she said. “I am glad I came because otherwise I would have been without food or water.”

Torrential rains have deluged Sri Lanka since last weekend, triggering huge landslides that have buried victims in up to 15 metres of mud and left 127 people missing.

As aid began to arrive on Saturday on a military plane from India and a commercial flight from Japan, Sri Lankan authorities said their priority was now preventing diseases such as diarrhoea, with many areas still under water.

“We have sent a large number of doctors and nursing staff to ensure there is no outbreak of waterborne diseases,” health minister Rajitha Senaratne said.

Irrigation director Prema Hettiarachchi said only the main Kelani river, which falls to the Indian Ocean through Colombo, was still at flood level, but that too should go down within about three days.

“If there is no major downpour in the next three days, the flood situation will ease,” she said.

Residents clung to ropes as they battled to cross torrents of water pulsing through the streets of the flooded capital on Saturday with some forced to take shelter in rickshaws.

The Indian government has provided inflatable boats, outboard motors, diving equipment, medical supplies, electricity generators and sleeping bags, officials said.

Two Indian naval ships arrived on Saturday at the port in Colombo, while Australia and the United States have made cash donations to help victims.

Nearly 300,000 people were staying in about 500 state-run relief centres Saturday, while a further 200,000 people were staying with friends or family.

Officials said there was a fresh landslide in the worst-hit central district of Kegalle, but that no casualties were reported because the area had been evacuated.