Chanaka Bandarage

Kandy, Kegalle, Badulla, Nuwara Eliya and Anuradhapura are the districts most affected from Dithwa cyclone. Hundreds of people died and many are missing. The casualty figure is likely to surpass the 1,000 mark.

About 35% of our island’s population lives in high risk landslide prone areas.

This is why Dithwa hit the central hills so badly.

Hanwella, Angoda, Kolonnawaa, Wellampitiya in the Western province – closer to Colombo, are now severely flood affected areas. In the past 20 years, frequent flash and river floods have claimed many lives in these areas. Therein, many people displace quite often.

Gampaha is a new area that frequently goes under water very badly.                                

Lately, haphazard development, irresponsible construction, ignoring proper planning have brought forth much destruction to Sri Lanka.

Especially after the war, the unscientific and environmentally unfriendly construction of expressways (Southern, Katunayake and Kandy), other infrastructure like a useless port and an airport in the South, deforestation, water source damage, illegal gem/sand mining etc  have led to severe environmental ruin. In fragile areas, this has been very severe.

Due to severe land scarcity, people in most provinces – except the North and East, live in cramped up conditions. Often people live in land plots that are not larger than 10 perches. The writer is aware of people that live in two perches lots.

It is reported that many of the hillside survivors and some Anuradhapura district victims wish to relocate. They are shocked by what they experienced. They believe that next time they will not be lucky.

Furthermore, some have lost kith and kin in the floods; obviously they do not wish to live in the same land anymore.

Their predicament is quite understandable.

The only areas where there is good livable land are in the North and East.

If these people are willing, they should be resettled in those areas. There is abundance of good arable land above Vavuniya towards Mannar, Kilinochchi, KKS/Valvetithurai and Mulativu in the North and above Pottuvil towards Trincomalee via Batticaloe in the East.

Article 14 (i)(h) of the Constitution provides that citizens are entitled to have freedom of movement and the ability chose residence anywhere they like within Sri Lanka. This is a fundamental right that promotes national integration by ensuring free internal mobility of citizens.

There is a severe criticism that the government failed to protect people from the Dithva calamity. There is some truth in this.

It is reasonable to argue that the government’s reactive, rather than the proactive approach contributed to the high death toll.

Despite prior warnings, there was a lack of preparedness and an overall  failure to act on the part of the government.

It was reasonably foreseeable that releasing reservoir waters in one go would worsen the situation.

It seems this is what happened in Kandy, Gampola, Kothamale and some places in Anuradhapura district.

Rather than opening sluice gates in one go, they should have been carefully released in stages, with prior warnings given.

There was 2 weeks for the government to act.

According to Anuradha Jayarathne MP, 80% of Gampola deaths were due to the government’s inaction.

It is unknown how he came to this figure.

It is probable that the poor construction of the Ambuluwawa tower by the UPFA government may have caused severe environmental degradation in Gampola area.

Prima facie, the fact that the irrigation department opened up sluice gates at various reservoirs haphazardly, without any warning seem to have contributed to severe flooding that caused numerous deaths.

A government MP trying to apportion blame on the Department of Meteorology is a farce.

If  negligence is proven, not only the irrigation department hierarchy but the Irrigation Minister and the President may also become liable.

Only a Court of Law can determine this precisely.

Of course the President is currently immune from any legal action whatsoever – criminal or civil.

The onus is very high to prove criminally negligent homicide/injuries.

YouTubers demand that the opposition must initiate criminal law action against the government. In Common Law countries, law does not work that way. Only the State (in Sri Lanka – the Attorney General) can initiate criminal prosecutions – in this instance criminal negligence causing death (manslaughter) and/or injury.

But, civilians who have suffered damage can initiate civil law action against the government. This can be done jointly or severally. If successful, they could recover handsome damages.

In a civil suit, the Plaintiff will be required to prove that the government breached the duty of care that it owed them.

Furthermore the availability of fundamental rights applications to the victims.

Some demand that the President and the government ought to resign henceforth over the calamity. This must not happen.  

This must be further vigorously argued in the parliament.

Of course there is a lot of criticism about the government’s handling of Dithva, but majority of the people still want the government to continue.

True the government failed to garner financial aid from Europe and the EU (Sajith would have done this very well) – the UK and Switzerland did help us; overall the government seems to be handling the post disaster work well. They have done a lot of good work in the past week.

Mr Trump’s US government gave us a big financial aid. Thank you Ms Chung.

The IMF is going to dig into its deep wallet. This is very good news.

If the government resigns now, who will take over the leadership? There is none capable at the moment.

We do not want the country to move out of the frying pan into the fire.

Sri Lankans are a resilience lot, like many other past calamities, we will bounce back from this as well.