Dry spell to ease off with inter-monsoon rains

By Manjula Fernando

With about 13 districts in six provinces still under the spell of a severe drought, the met Department is optimistic that the prevailing condition will ease off by September with the activation of the second inter-monsoon.

Meteorological Department Director General Lalith Chandrapala said the reason for the drought situation in the 13 districts was due to the very low rainfall during the North East monsoon from December 2013 to February 2014 and the second intermon soon in 2013.

Moneragala, Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura, Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Kurunegala, Puttalam, Hambantota, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Kilinochchi disticts in Uva, North Central, Wayamba, Southern and Northern provinces have been affected by the water crisis.

A total of 412, 423 families and over 1.4 million people are affected, according to the latest data released by the Disaster Management Centre.

"Now we are experiencing the south west monsoon. The major rainfall from south west monsoon is received in the Sabaragamuwa, Western and Central provinces and Galle and Matara districts." The Dry Zone gets rain during the north east monsoon and second inter-monsoon from September to November.

"There have been a few instances of inter- monsoons failing to activate twice in a row. We are not expecting any such thing this year. Therefore the drought hit areas will have rainfall within the coming weeks."

He said the Met Department expects the second inter-monsoon to arrive on time and bring much of the rain to the Dry Zone which is under a bad spell these days.

The DG said Since last Monday the eastern parts of the country including the Moneragala district has been experiencing some thunder showers. "This is welcome news."

However, he said rainfall until September will not be effective in easing off the drought condition. According to him the average rainfall from the thunder showers experienced these days will be below 20mm.Sri Lanka's rainfall can be categorised into four main seasons, first inter-monsoon from March to April, Southwest monsoon from May to September, the second inter-monsoon from September to November and Northeast monsoon from December to February.

The disaster Management Centre Deputy Director Sarath Lal Kumara said Kurunegala was the worst affected district due to the current crisis with nearly 140,000 families affected by water shortage followed by Polonnaruwa with nearly 150,000 people of 45,000 families affected.

Moneragala and Batticaloa came second with families hit by drought numbering 32, 039 and 32,700 respectively. In Hambantota 26, 584 families were affected and in Puttalam the figure was 8,100.

These areas have not received rain for over eight months now and this has also caused a problem of a different nature.

The Disaster Management Centre has received 125 instances of deliberate forest fires in protected forest reserves in Moneragala, Badulla, Polonnaruwa and Nuwara Eliya districts during this dry spell. Forest fires broke out in the Ravana Ella forest reserve on Friday and a large expanse of fauna and flora has been destroyed in the fire.

Five people in Badulla were arrested recently. He said such action too contribute to dry up ground water sources and will result in landslides during rainfall. Illegal poachers, and farmers driven by myths are mainly responsible for such bush fires.

The Deputy Director said if there is no adequate rainfall by September and October months, there was a major risk to paddy cultivation as well as to chena cultivation and minor export crops.

It is predicted that the farmers benefiting from the Mahaweli will not face a severe water issue but there are concerns about the Parakrama Samudra and smaller tanks in the area.

He said priority at the moment was to supply drinking water to affected households. While the disaster management centre allocated Rs.90 million for this purpose and supplies of dry rations,.

The Government allocated Rs. 1300 million for relief and for an accelerated development program to remove silt and mud sediment in reservoirs and tanks and to reconstruct 600 agricultural wells to increase the capacity of holding water in these drought prone areas.

The action is prudent given that these areas are increasingly becoming vulnerable for extreme dry conditions due to global climatic changes and considering the fact that Polonnaruwa and a number of other districts were hit by a similar crisis in August 2012.