As the death toll from last week’s Cyclone Ditwah increased to 607, heavy rains on Friday prompted new landslide concerns in Sri Lanka’s worst-affected central hills.
Heavy rainfall might further saturate the hills and cause instability, according to the National Building Research Organization (NBRO), which keeps an eye on the stability of mountain slopes.
“Since rainfall within the past 24 hours has exceeded 150 millimetres, if the rains continue, evacuate to a safe location to avoid the risk of landslides,” the NBRO said in a statement.
While some of the earlier floods that occurred last week has begun to lessen, the monsoon rains caused the most recent deluge.
607 people have been confirmed dead, according to the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), with many of the previously unaccounted-for individuals now thought to have perished in the catastrophic mudslides.
The number of persons impacted increased to just over two million, however the number of missing was revised down from 341 to 214.
As floodwaters retreated in and around the capital city of Colombo, the number of people living in state-run refugee shelters dropped even more to 150,000 from a peak of 225,000.
Record rainfall triggered the floods and deadly landslides, which President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has described as the most challenging natural disaster in the history of the island.
