A nation in mourning

The counting is long and heartrending in a disaster. Numbers take up new meaning when they concern lives lost, homes destroyed and people dragged to shelters. Each number is one too many, each digit is the incalculable weight of loss. 

much of the anger has been directed at the Government, especially since these floods come nearly a year after terrible floods. The devastation is almost familiar and the anger they dredge up even more so.

The Disaster Management Ministry exposed its unpreparedness to deal with a disaster situation, admitting it lacks stocks of basic items such as blankets, life jackets, umbrellas, torches or even boxes of matches to distribute in such situations. In response to this week’s flood havoc that crippled the nation, the Ministry of Disaster Management was in shortage of basic humanitarian needs for an immediate response.

document, prepared on Friday by the ministry to share with UN and other international donors, seeking their assistance indicated that there are no stocks of drinking water (bottles of five litres or above), blankets, life jackets, mobile toilets, umbrellas, torches and boxes of matches.

The document titled ‘National Disaster Relief Services Centre Requests for Relief’ dated Friday, detailed the current needs that were calculated based on demographic and historic data from previous disaster situations. Some 23 urgent humanitarian needs were included with details of the amounts needed, availability and the extent of the shortage.

Conceding that the ministry did not have an adequate stock at its disposal at the time of the flood havoc, Disaster Management Ministry Secretary S. S Miyanawala told media that purchasing those items was outsourced due to their availability in the market at any time. There is some truth in the fact that some supplies cannot be stockpiled but any Government with a sense of responsibility would ensure that access to them would be maintained. 

This is even more pertinent because severe weather warnings had been made. As the effects of climate change increases the cycle of severe droughts followed by floods is the new normal and policymakers, had they used their common sense, would have known that mass flooding and landslides were imminent. 

President Maithripala Sirisena has handed a blank cheque to relief workers but such outdated responses have little impact when the disaster is of this magnitude. Victims of Salawa and other landslides are still waiting in camps and this latest round has simply added to these numbers.  

What the Government has to put together is a comprehensive prevention and response plan that looks at reducing the severity of the flooding and seriously protecting the environment. Rampant urbanisation and illegal construction is a direct result of Government corruption and mismanagement with little being done to address structural problems that propagate a culture of impunity. 

ministers of this Government should congratulate themselves on how deeply unpopular they have made themselves by their selfish demands for luxury vehicles and failing to be with the people in their hour of need. The callousness they have been accused of displaying is on an impressive level and possibly higher than the usual ire directed at public representatives. In fact it is fair to say that they have hit a new low in the eyes of the public - at least till the next failure. 

All volunteers and public employees working around the clock deserve the highest salute. We as Sri Lankans are grateful to them and it is in them that we see the best of whom we are and a reason to cling onto hope.