Michael Roberts
Moving from west to east across the Indian Ocean, the cyclone Ditwah has wrought unprecedented damage in Sri Lanka and many other countries. The damage has been via sweeping floods as well as landslides. Thus far, 374 deaths and 330 missing are said to be one set of consequences from this dramatic EVENT (see Note A below).
The mental anguish and media imperatives have been promoting what I deem to be a BLAME GAME. The fingers have been pointed at previous administrations and the main planning authorities. Particular emphasis is being attached to the building programmes — houses and urban premises—in the lowland areas of the North-Western, Western and Southern Provinces which have seen the reduction of the wetlands in these regions. The ASSERTION is that these natural features would have absorbed the wrecking force of cyclone Ditwah.
I am not a specialist. My peculiar common-sense questions the confidence with which such claims are being pressed …. In part because I perceive (and understand) the distress which is promoting such claims.
The wetlands in their former more pristine state certainly would not have prevented the landslides in the hill country which wrought such severe damage and caused fatalities in several sites.
The manner in which mental anguish and media frenzy promotes the blame game is illustrated in one article which pinpoints the A9 Highways stretching from Ratmalan airport to the south as one of the developments that reduced the “protective wetlands’ and thereby contributed to the damage. These highways are built with supportive pylons that have many gaps in between. So, I fail to see how they could be seen as major impediments to the flow of flood waters. In any event such highways facilitate the flow of vegetables and other trade-goods between regions and cheapen prices to consumers. Just ask the growers of the Jaffna Peninsula how the building of bridges and linking of Point Pedro to Colombo was such a boon to their farmers because the time taken by this route was much less than the older throughfare between Jaffna via the A9 through Kilinochchhi.
This is a continuous impact and effect….. not a one-off BLOW.
Sudden heavy blows seem to distort assessments. They stir the mind and generate cuastic brews.
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NOTE Z ……Naciones Unidas …. https://www.bing.com/search?q=deaths+an+dinjuries+from+DITWAH+in+Sri+Lanka&PC=C535&FORM=C535DF
We, as a nation, always wait for things to happen and get activated. That is not for one person or one group. It is how we react as a nation in the face of any calamity. When the Lower Kadugannanwa landslide took place, a NBRO senior scientist visited the site and stated that the place is a high-risk area. But the owner has built up a hotel and obtained permission from all the authorities.
So the blame goes across the board.
Hi, Michael. Thank you for this.
The post-cyclone ‘blame game’, as you call it, annoys me as much as it does you. But to me what is signifies is not people pointing fingers at past administrations but the gibbering and squealing on social media from Rajapaksa supporters, Ranilists and old Colombo elites (spoilt, angry Colombo aunties seem to form a particularly prominent fraction of the third component) trying to pin the blame on the government.
I have already said the little I have to say about this elsewhere – on Facebook, in a public exchange with Roel Raymond (see https://web.facebook.com/photo?fbid=4092438981007091&set=a.1418427688408247) and do not propose to say any more. That little is summed up in a truism: you cannot successfully prepare for any natural disaster. The best you can do is mitigate it as much as possible, and clean up afterwards. This is plain to anyone who reads history. And beyond this I am not qualified to do so; I am no expert in the field of disaster management.
But I should like to emphasize that the gibberers and squealers – on either side – are no experts either. I was heartened to see you admit your own lack of subject knowledge in your remarks above. If only the spoilt aunties and pop-up professors were as brave as you!
THANK YOU, Richard. It is pertinent to have a grounded set of thoughts from a person living in Sri Lanka.
THUPPAHI Readers: do digest these thoughts from a resident in Colombo who has authored two outstanding books on the island’s history — one concerned with the tea industry and thus necessarily involving engagements with the circumstances of the hill country.
&& … https://thuppahis.com/2017/07/18/ceylon-tea-and-its-surrounds-richard-simons-tour-de-force/
&& …. https://thuppahis.com/2025/04/02/thomias-frontal-pages/#more-89150