Sri Lanka Cyclone Ditwah kills 69 people by flooding, mudslides

Rescue teams in Sri Lanka scrambled on Friday to rescue hundreds of people stranded by rising waters, as the death toll from the weather-related disaster rose to 69. Another 34 people were reported missing, The Guardian reports .

Helicopters and navy boats were carrying out rescue operations to rescue locals from rooftops and villages cut off by floods.

The Disaster Management Center (DMC) said the death toll had risen as more bodies were recovered in the worst-hit central region, where most of the victims were buried alive in landslides this week. Rain fell across the island, with some regions recording 360 millimeters in the past 24 hours, the DMC said.

The Kelani River, which flows into the Indian Ocean near the capital Colombo, burst its banks on Friday.

VSA Ratnayake, 56, said he was forced to leave his flooded home in Kaduwela, near Colombo. “I think this could be the worst flood in our area in the last three decades,” Ratnayake said. “I remember a flood in the 1990s when my house was covered in two feet of water.”

Kalyani, 48, also from Kaduwela, said she is sheltering two families whose houses were flooded. At least 3,000 homes were damaged by landslides and flooding, and more than 18,000 people were moved to temporary shelters.

In the northern Anuradhapura district, a Bell 212 helicopter airlifted a man who had climbed a coconut tree to escape rising waters.

The DMC announced that more rainfall is expected, with Cyclone Ditwah expected to move away from the north of the country on Sunday and head towards the state of Tamil Nadu, in southern India.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences for the loss of life in Sri Lanka and said Delhi was urgently sending aid to the affected areas.

“We stand ready to provide further help and assistance as the situation evolves,” Modi said on the X platform.

DMC officials said they expected the flooding to be worse than in 2016, when 71 people died nationwide.

On Friday, dozens of stranded tourists were evacuated to Colombo from the central tea-growing areas.

Sirasa TV broadcast a desperate call for help from a woman. “There are six of us, including a one-and-a-half-year-old child.

If the water rises five more steps on the ladder, we will have nowhere to go,” she said on the phone.

Sri Lanka is in the northeast monsoon season, but rainfall has intensified due to Cyclone Ditwah, the DMC said. Sri Lanka depends on seasonal monsoon rains for irrigation and hydropower, but experts have warned that the country is facing more frequent floods due to the climate crisis.

The number of victims caused by weather conditions this week is the highest since June last year, when 26 people died following torrential rains.

In December, 17 people died in floods and landslides.

The worst floods Sri Lanka has seen since the turn of the century occurred in June, when 254 people were killed.