Lanka resumes search for mudslide victims

AFP/Colombo

After the operation was suspended on Thursday afternoon because of fresh rains, searching resumed at daybreak yesterday with a team of sniffer dogs joining hundreds of troops already at the site of the tragedy in the picturesque Koslanda region, around 200km (125 miles) east of Colombo.

Although officials have estimated that around 100 people lost their lives on the Meeriyabedda plantation, only a handful of bodies have been dug out from the mud that wiped out scores of homes.

“We are using the sniffer dogs to look for any bodies,” said the officer in charge of the sniffer dog unit, without giving his name.

Heavy earth-moving machinery was deployed to the site on Thursday and the officer told reporters that more mechanical diggers were expected to join in the search effort.

Survivors have recounted how drinking water streams turned muddy, cracks appeared in the ground and cattle and goats started running down the mountain slope just before tragedy struck.

“I shouted to our parents to hurry ... I saw my mother close the front door and at that moment, a huge mound of earth crashed onto our house, Gajani Ravichandra, 14, said.

“It all happened right in front of our eyes. All I could do was scream and scream,” she said at a temporary shelter. Her parents perished but her grandparents and brother survived.

Gajani’s brother Suresh Kumar, 12, said he saw an unusual sight of cattle and goats running down a slope just before the landslide.

A six-year-old girl was lost in the mudslide as she walked to school with her older brother who narrowly escaped, officials said, adding around 85 students were among 227 people who escaped the mudslide.

Some people lost entire families. One driver recounted how his wife, two sons, daughter-in-law and a six-month-old baby girl had been swallowed by the mud.

Shanthi Selvadurai, 23, said she was trying to flee the mudslide when she suddenly found herself buried to the neck.

“My mother managed to get to safety. She came back with two men who dug me out,” Selvadurai said, nursing a leg injury.

Textile store worker Vijaya Kantha, 23, said he saw danger signs of unstable ground and rushed back to collect his identity card from home.

But just before he reached his dwelling, he heard a loud noise and saw his house swallowed by mud.

The region’s top military officer, Major General Mano Perera, who is supervising the recovery efforts, said sniffer dogs had indicated several sites where people might be buried.

“In some places, we will have to dig 20-to-30ft (6-to-9m) to remove the new layer of soil,” Perera said.

“Rains and soggy conditions are impeding our progress, but we will keep this recovery effort going,” he said.

Several countries, including India and the United States, have offered help.

More than 1,200 people living in neighbouring tea plantations, have sheltered in two schools fearing more mudslides in the picturesque, but geographically unstable tea-growing mountain region, officials said.

Sri Lanka, a tropical island at the foot of India, is prone to weather-related disasters — especially during the monsoon season when the rains are often welcomed by farmers.

If the death toll does reach three figures, the disaster would be the country’s worst since the December 2004 tsunami when 31,000 people died.