Death toll from Sri Lanka landslides and floods rises to 69
The government announces the closing of all government offices and schools as weather conditions grow worse.
Sri Lanka has closed government offices and schools as the death toll from floods and landslides across the country has risen to 69, with another 34 people missing, according to officials.
The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) on Friday said the toll had climbed with the recovery of more bodies in the worst-affected central region, where most deaths were caused by landslides.
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Rain was falling across the island with some regions receiving 36 centimetres (14 inches) in the past 24 hours, the DMC said.
Sri Lanka began grappling with severe weather last week, and the conditions worsened on Thursday with heavy downpours that flooded homes, fields and roads, and triggered landslides across the country.
More than 25 people were killed on Thursday in landslides in the central mountainous tea-growing regions of Badulla and Nuwara Eliya, which is about 300km (186 miles) east of the capital, Colombo.
Another 21 people were missing, and 14 were injured in the Badulla and Nuwara Eliya areas, according to the DMC, as cited by The Associated Press news agency.
Others died in landslides in different parts of the country.
Daily life heavily impacted
VSA Ratnayake, 56, said he had to leave his flooded home in Kaduwela, just outside Colombo.
“I think this could be the worst flood in our area for three decades,” Ratnayake told the AFP news agency. “I remember a flood in the 1990s when my house was under seven feet of water.”
DMC officials said they expected flood levels to be worse than in 2016, when 71 people were killed nationwide.
As the weather conditions grew worse, the government announced the closing of all government offices and schools on Friday.
Due to heavy rains, most reservoirs and rivers have overflowed, blocking roads. Authorities stopped passenger trains and closed roads in many parts of the country after rocks, mud and trees fell on roads and railway tracks, which were also flooded in some areas.
Local television showed an air force helicopter rescuing three people stranded on the roof of a house surrounded by floods on Thursday, while the navy and police used boats to transport residents.
Footage on Thursday also showed a car being swept away by floodwaters near the eastern town of Ampara, leaving three passengers dead.