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