Extensive damage – Minister tours North

by P. Krishnaswamy

Rains and floods in the North have caused extensive damage and displaced thousands of families.

Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera is touring the Northern districts today to take stock of the situation.

He told the Sunday Observer that his Ministry was ready to face any situation and the evacuation of affected families and provision of relief assistance were swift. According to the latest Situation Report of the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), the largest number, 62,446 families comprising 231,160 persons were affected in the Eastern province.

Ten deaths were reported while 2,168 houses were fully damaged and 3,870 houses partly damaged in the province.

Several tanks are overflowing and major tanks including the Iranamadu tank were breached and several roads, the Mankulam– Mullaitivu Main Road, the Mannar-Jaffna Road, the Mannar–Puttalam Road via Silavathurai, Mannar–Madhu A 14 Road, Mannar-Jaffna A 32 Road, Vaddakadchy–Kilinochchi Road and the Murugandy Akkarayankulam road are impassable, GAs of the districts said.

There has been no rain since Friday. The situation is improving rapidly and a large number of families has already returned to their homes, they said. Cooked meals were provided for three days and the families were provided dry rations for one week after leaving the welfare evacuation centres, they said.

Plastic mats, floor sheets, bed sheets, mosquito nets and tarpaulin sheets were also provided to the families housed in welfare camps or evacuation centres, they said.

Mobile medical clinics were operating with qualified doctors and the evacuation operations were conducted jointly by the Security Forces, the police and government authorities. Twenty eight thousand nine hundred and seventy one families comprising 104,092 persons were affected in the Vavuniya, Mannar, Kilinochchi and Jaffna districts.