All government schools in the Kandy and Nuwara Eliya districts will be closed on Tuesday (4) because of the continuing heavy rain, in a decision announced by the Chief Secretary of the Central Province.
The blanket closure replaces the looser arrangement that applied on Monday, when principals in the Hatton and Nuwara Eliya education zones were left to decide for themselves whether to open.
NewsFirst reported that the decision was taken as continuous downpours across parts of the Central Province raised concerns over flooding, landslides, rockfalls and disruption to transport. Ada Derana carried the Nuwara Eliya and Kandy district announcements separately.
Monday: a decision left to principals
Principals of schools in the Hatton and Nuwara Eliya education zones had been given authority to decide whether to keep their schools open or closed on Monday, depending on conditions in their own areas.
The two zones cover the hill-country schools worst exposed to the current wet spell. That approach left the call with individual principals rather than closing the zones outright, allowing schools on flooded or landslide-prone approach roads to shut while others stayed open.
Accounts differed on who issued the Monday instruction. Ada Derana attributed it to the Provincial Director of Education, who it said had empowered principals to make the final call based on the weather situation in their respective areas. Hiru News reported that the Central Province Chief Secretary directed that steps be taken to close schools in the two zones as necessary.
Why these areas
The Hatton and Nuwara Eliya zones sit inside the area under the heaviest active warnings. The National Building Research Organisation’s landslide early warnings, in force until 11.00 p.m. on Monday, place Ambagamuwa and Norwood in the Nuwara Eliya district under second-level alerts, with first-level watches over Nuwara Eliya, Talawakele, Kothmale West and Kothmale East. Norwood and Ambagamuwa are the divisions immediately around Hatton.
The Met Department’s Monday forecast puts rainfall above 100 mm at some places in the Nuwara Eliya and Kandy districts and in Sabaragamuwa — double the threshold forecast for Sunday.
Much of the population in the hill-country zones lives on tea estates, where school access routes run along steep slopes and are among the first to be cut when the ground gives way. The Irrigation Department has separately issued a Red major-flood alert for ten Mahaweli divisions, and main roads across the hill country — including the Colombo–Kandy route at Kadugannawa — were closed on Monday by rockfalls and floodwater.
In Nuwara Eliya, the District Secretary reported that 2,331 people from 581 families had been affected and six were missing as of Monday afternoon.
Update (August 5): schools reopen, Hatton zone stays shut
Government schools in the Kandy and Nuwara Eliya districts reopened on Wednesday (5), with the exception of those in the Hatton Education Zone, Ada Derana reported.
The Central Province Department of Education had ordered the closure of schools across the two districts as a precautionary measure amid the heavy rainfall and the risk of weather-related disasters. Ada Derana attributed the original closure order to the provincial Department of Education, where the Tuesday closure was reported at the time as a decision of the Central Province Chief Secretary — the same divergence over which tier of the provincial administration issues these instructions that ran through the Monday announcements.
The Hatton zone covers the hill-country schools worst exposed to the wet spell, and remained closed on the instructions of the Central Province Director of Education because of conditions still prevailing there.
The reopening leaves the schools closure resolved a day before the Irrigation Department’s Red major-flood alert on the Mahaweli expires at 1.00 p.m. on Wednesday, and on a morning when the Kotmale Reservoir spill gates were reopened at 7.00 a.m. with towns downstream told to stay alert.
The Disaster Management Centre’s latest situation report puts the overall impact of the spell at eight dead and 11,832 people affected from 3,014 families across nine districts, with 3,538 people sheltering in 51 temporary safe centres. One house has been destroyed and 290 partially damaged.
