Up to 125 dead in Sri Lanka floods

Up to 125 people have died in flash floods and landslides in Sri Lanka, officials said today, as forecasters warned that more rain was on the way.

About 150,000 people have fled their homes in the affected areas and are being housed in temples, schools and public buildings.

Local officials in Ratnapura, Hambabtota and Matara districts said 78 bodies had been recovered so far.

They said another 47 people were feared dead in a landslide that wiped out an entire village, which would bring the toll to 125.

The overall death toll was expected to rise.

Neighbouring India was sending a rescue helicopter and a relief ship with medicine, food, water and doctors.

The Department of Meteorology warned of new rain today. “There will be occasional showers accompanied by fairly strong winds,” it said.

Ratnapura district, famed for its gem mines, is home to one million people.

The flash floods hit the area late on Saturday, when most residents had returned home after celebrating a festival marking the birth of Buddha.

Natural disasters of this magnitude are rare in Sri Lanka, a small tropical island country with 18.6 million people off India’s southern coast.

A cyclone hit the country on May 13, and since then it has been raining heavily in the central and southern parts of Sri Lanka, caused by a tropical depression in the Bay of Bengal.