Glimpse of History from ANCL Archives:

Floods that marooned the nation

by Indeewara Thilakarathne

Pettha Bus station

Being a natural phenomenon, floods are a common occurrence in many parts of the globe and the tropical paradise of Sri Lanka is not an exception to this.

The low lying lands along the Kelani river banks and heavily reclaimed areas such as Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, Battaramulla and parts of Maradana and Maligawatte submerge during the monsoon.

The 1936 floods and the floods in May 1947 were recorded as the worst floods that Sri Lanka has ever experienced. In fact, Sri Lanka has experienced several major floods including the recent one in which around 75,000 families with approximately 335,000 members were adversely affected, internally displacing some of them.

The districts of Gampaha, Puttalam, Kalutara, Badulla, Galle, Matara, Kurunegala, Kegalle, Ratnapura and Colombo are some of the areas worst affected by floods. The Flood victims are suffering untold hardships as their settlements are still under water and their livelihoods completely disrupted.

By and large, the flash floods in the city of Colombo and suburbs are man-made and are principally due to indiscriminate reclamation of marshy lands and poor management of drainage system in the city.

Until recently, Sri Lanka did not have a contingency plan to be activated in events of floods.

Fortunately, the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) is now tasked with the management of natural disasters.

Sri Lanka experiences floods during the North -East monsoon, from October to November.

As the natural water absorbing mechanism is effectively hampered by the reclamation of low lying lands and paddyfields where new settlements including commercial establishments were built totally disregarding the environmental impact of these constructions, they are subjected to constant flooding.