Ranil slams Govt. for negligence over monsoon storm; losses

By Ashwin Hemmathagama

– Our Lobby Correspondent

Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday slammed the Government for its negligence and lack of coordination that resulted in the monumental loss of life due to the recent inclement weather.

In a statement made in Parliament yesterday under section 23(2) of the Standing Orders Wickremesinghe said the Government had failed to notify people of the risk and urge precautions and were now engaged in an inter-agency blame game.

 “According to the Ministry of Fisheries, the Meteorological Department has not issued a risk warning in time.  According to the Meteorological Department, the Fisheries Department has ignored the announcement made by them.  The media institutions say they never received such a fax message or an e-mail letter from the Meteorological Department,” Wickremesinghe elaborated.

He said that what is manifest was that despite the large numbers of ministries, officials and departments tasked with the responsibility to protect citizens in the case of impending disasters they had failed to notify people in time.  “Not only that, there was no course of action in operation to take to the land harmlessly a number of fishermen who had barely managed to return ashore after a deadly struggle with the waves.  Some lost their lives in sight of the shore.  It is because of the diligence and timely intervention of courageous youth who had been on the shore at that time that a number of other lives escaped death,” Wickremesinghe charged.

He said the rescue operations on the part of the Air Force and Navy had been inadequate. “According to the reports, they had utilized only one helicopter for these operations; there were no normal aircrafts at all.  According to the Security Forces, they had not been formally informed of such a serious weather situation.We had occasion to get assistance from the Indian Coast Guard Corps at such a hazardous situation because they have vessels and aircrafts with modern facilities that can be utilized at such emergencies.  But the Government paid no heed to this,” he said.

Reporting the facts to the House, the Opposition Leader said the Meteorological institutions had known the seriousness of this inclement weather by the midnight of that day.  “By about 3 a.m. the situation grew worse and even then there was no coordination among relevant parties and no risk warnings were made nor emergency discussions held among them.  If at least they managed to do that the loss of lives could have been minimized. Global Meteorologists had cautioned that a dangerous weather situation like this will come about.  Other countries in the region kept alert on that and hence were able to minimize and manage the impact of disaster,” Wickremesinghe said.   “Maybe because we are the wonder of Asia, we did nothing of the sort,” Wickremesinghe charged.

He said it was deplorable that even after the disaster, no proper action was taken to manage the disaster or to give relief to the affected. In response Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Dr. Rajitha Senaratne said that the actual death toll from the storm was 58. “Eight persons are missing. 84 boats are completely destroyed, 74 boats are partly destroyed. Rs.73.2 million is required to compensate these losses. The Navy used Suranimala, Sayura, and Jayasagara ships along with 10 other dvoras for the rescue missions. The Air Force used two helicopters and a beach craft. As a result the Navy rescued 15 fishermen and the Air Force 8. We will seek Cabinet approval to compensate these fishermen,” the Minister said.