The Disaster Management Centre says 10,311 people across 21 of Sri Lanka’s 25 districts have been affected by the current spell of adverse weather, with 28 houses completely destroyed and 1,807 partially damaged.
The figures were reported by NewsFirst on Sunday, which attributes them to the DMC. The centre says the incidents behind the tally include landslides, floods and drownings.
Sixty-seven people from 23 families are currently in safety centres — a small figure against the number affected, indicating that most of the damage so far has been to property and access rather than to habitability.
The DMC asks the public to report emergencies directly on the 117 hotline.
Where this sits
The tally is the human cost of a weather system this desk has been tracking for several days. The Bay of Bengal depression has now been named Cyclone Arnab, with landfall forecast on the Indian coast on 28 October; Sri Lanka is not in its direct path but has been taking the indirect effects as rain across the south-west and north. Spill gates at Upper Kotmale and Deduru Oya have been opened, and flood risk warnings have been issued for the Kalu Ganga and Deduru Oya basins.
The Department of Meteorology on Sunday forecast rainfall exceeding 100 mm in several areas, and issued a separate lightning warning for Uva, Ampara and Batticaloa with strong winds and thundershowers expected in the evening.
Two deaths already covered by this desk fall within the same weather period: two women killed by lightning in Anuradhapura and a bus overturning at Saliyawewa on a rain-slick stretch of the Puttalam–Anuradhapura road.
Update, Sunday evening: response teams deployed, and Rajanganaya draws down
The Disaster Management Centre has deployed rescue teams and equipment to areas at risk, the Daily Mirror reported on Sunday evening. DMC Director Pradeep Kodippili said all necessary arrangements had been made to respond to possible disaster situations arising from the prevailing rain, and that the preparations followed the Meteorology Department’s forecasts for the Bay of Bengal system.
That filing also gives the system’s position when it reached deep-depression strength — 15.1° North, 91.0° East, at 11.30 a.m. — and repeats that it is not expected to affect Sri Lanka directly, though its wind circulation is raising rainfall over the island, particularly in the south-west.
The Meteorology Department’s 100 mm forecast, covering the Northern, Western, Sabaragamuwa, Southern, North-Western and Central provinces and the Anuradhapura district, is separately reported by the Daily Mirror, which adds strong winds of 40–50 kmph at times over the western slopes of the Central Hills, the Northern, North Central and North Western provinces and the Trincomalee and Hambantota districts.
At Rajanganaya, the Irrigation Department says two spill gates remain open with the rain continuing, Hiru News reported. Eight had been opened when the earlier rainfall peaked, so the reservoir is drawing down rather than building — the first indication in this spell that a major tank has come off its peak discharge.
At Deduru Oya, the movement is the other way. Later on Sunday evening the Irrigation Department opened eight spill gates, one foot each, and issued a notice to people living downstream, Hiru News reported at 8.02 p.m. Residents of the lower Deduru Oya basin were told to be cautious in any activity near the river and to stay alert to the prevailing situation.
The two filings, an hour and a half apart, therefore run in opposite directions: Rajanganaya has come down from eight gates to two, while Deduru Oya has gone up to eight. That is consistent with where the rain has been falling — the North Western basin has been under the heavier totals — and it means the overall picture on Sunday night is not one of uniform recession.
The Deduru Oya notice also answers, for one reservoir, the question left open below: there is a downstream public advisory, though it is a caution rather than an evacuation instruction, and the filing still gives no discharge rate in cusecs. Deduru Oya was running at 16,500 cusecs when its gates were opened on 21 October; no current rate is published.
Update, Sunday night: Kalawewa opens two gates — and is still filling
A third reservoir has begun spilling. At 3.00 p.m. on Sunday the engineer’s office in charge of Kalawewa opened two spill gates by six inches each as the water level rose, Hiru News reported at 10.32 p.m.
This is the first filing in the current spell to publish the numbers the reservoir reports above had all lacked.
The water level had risen to 81,475 acre-feet by Sunday afternoon, with the office recording a sharp rise between 12.00 and 1.00 p.m.
The discharge, in the filing’s own breakdown: 505 cusecs through the newly opened spill gates into the Kala Oya, and 1,457 cusecs through canal releases, for a stated total of 1,962 cusecs leaving the reservoir. The two components sum exactly to the stated total.
The inflow is the more significant figure. Water is still entering Kalawewa through the Dambulu Oya and other sources at 2,280 cusecs — about 318 cusecs more than is going out. On the filing’s own numbers the reservoir is therefore still filling, not drawing down, which is consistent with what the report says next: this is not a sudden flood or disaster situation, but if the rain continues the gates may have to be opened further during the night.
Set against the two reservoirs above, the Sunday-night picture is three tanks in three different states — Rajanganaya easing from eight gates to two, Deduru Oya opened to eight, and Kalawewa newly spilling on two gates with inflow still ahead of outflow.
A caution on the Daily Mirror’s day-words
The later Daily Mirror filing is published on Sunday 25 October but written from Monday’s standpoint: it dates the deep depression to “11.30 a.m. yesterday (25)” and forecasts cyclone strength “by the morning of today (26)”. Its own timestamp is 6.14 p.m. on the 25th. The dates in brackets are correct; the day-words are a day ahead. Read literally, every event in that report shifts forward by one day. This desk has used the bracketed dates.
Update, Monday morning: the Irrigation Department publishes discharge rates — and says there is no flood
The Irrigation Department says no flood situation has developed anywhere in the country, Hiru News reported at 8.11 a.m. on Monday. L.S. Sooriyabandara, Director of the department’s Hydrology and Disaster Management Division, said that while many reservoirs show a normal rise in water level, none has developed into flooding.
Several major rivers — the Kalu Ganga and the Kelani Ganga among them — are showing significant rises, the department said. The rain driving the reservoir openings has fallen in Anuradhapura, Trincomalee, Puttalam and Kurunegala.
This filing publishes the discharge rates this article had recorded as missing.
| Reservoir | Discharge |
|---|---|
| Deduru Oya | ~5,300 cusecs |
| Rajanganaya | ~2,300 cusecs |
Set against the archive, the Deduru Oya figure is the more informative one. The reservoir was running at 16,500 cusecs when its gates were opened on 21 October. At ~5,300 cusecs it is now discharging less than a third of that rate, despite having eight gates open — so the eight-gate figure reported on Sunday night reflects how the discharge is distributed across the gates, not a return to the peak flow of five days ago. That comparison is this desk’s own, drawn from its earlier reporting; neither filing makes it.
Rajanganaya goes back up to six gates
Rajanganaya has reopened to six spill gates, Hiru reported at 9.39 a.m., to control the volume of water reaching the reservoir in the continuing heavy rain. The Irrigation Department gave the opening heights gate by gate: two gates at four feet each, two at three feet each, and two at two feet each. The three pairs account for all six.
That reverses Sunday evening’s movement. The reservoir’s gate count across the spell now runs eight at the earlier peak, down to two on Sunday evening, back up to six on Monday morning — so the easing recorded in the section above did not hold.
The department has also now issued the downstream advisory this article recorded as absent for Rajanganaya: people living around the lower Kala Oya basin are told to act on notices issued by the Irrigation Department and the disaster management authorities, and are warned that the extent to which the gates are opened may change with rainfall in the reservoir’s catchment.
A fourth reservoir: Thabbowa
Thabbowa, in the Mee Oya basin, has opened two spill gates at half a foot each to control its inflow, according to the engineers in charge of the reservoir. It is the fourth tank to begin spilling in this spell, after Rajanganaya, Deduru Oya and Kalawewa.
The Department of Meteorology expects somewhat heavy rain over the south-western areas in the period ahead — a shift in emphasis from the North Western and North Central districts where the reservoir openings have been concentrated, and consistent with the rises reported on the Kalu Ganga and Kelani Ganga.
The headline assessment and the operational picture point in different directions, and both are from the same department within 90 minutes. The 8.11 a.m. statement is that there is no flood; the 9.39 a.m. filing has a major tank tripling its open gates and a fourth reservoir beginning to spill. These are not contradictory — a reservoir spilling under control is the system working as intended — but the “no flood situation” line should be read as a statement about present conditions, not a forecast.
Update, Monday midday: the warnings move to the Kalu Ganga and the Mahaweli
The Irrigation Department has issued formal minor flood warnings for two basins this desk had not previously recorded as under warning in this spell. At 11.30 a.m. it warned of a minor flood in low-lying areas along the Kalu Ganga within 24 hours, naming six divisional secretariat divisions in Ratnapura and seven in Kalutara; at 1.06 p.m. it added a minor flood risk on the Mahaweli in the Pasbage Korale division of the Kandy district. The Education Ministry has separately given provincial education officials the power to close schools where the rain makes it impossible to hold them, and close to 100 houses have been damaged by strong winds at Iranawila near Chilaw.
These are covered in full, with the division lists, in a separate report.
The direction of travel is what matters for this account. The reservoir openings recorded above are concentrated in the North Western and North Central districts; Monday’s warnings are for the south-west and the central hills. That is the shift the Met Department’s “somewhat heavy rain over the south-western areas” forecast, noted above, pointed to.
Update, Monday evening: the first death, and a situation report that finally states its window
The Disaster Management Centre has reported the first death of this weather spell. Its latest situation report puts more than 10,500 people from 2,736 families affected across 12 districts, with one death, one person injured, two houses completely damaged and 215 partially damaged, the Daily Mirror reported at 7.36 p.m. Colombo time.
Crucially, this report states the period it covers: 23 October to 6 p.m. on 26 October. That is the detail this article recorded below as missing from the earlier tally — and it is what makes the two sets of figures impossible to read as one running count. See the reconciliation note that follows.
The death
A 56-year-old person drowned at Madampe, in the Puttalam district. The filing gives no name, no sex and no circumstances beyond the cause.
This is overwhelmingly a Puttalam event
| District | People affected | Families |
|---|---|---|
| Puttalam | 8,446 | 2,166 |
| Ratnapura | 1,264 | 315 |
| Kalutara | 218 | 61 |
The three named districts account for 9,928 people of the stated 10,500-plus — so the remaining nine districts in the report share roughly 600 between them. Puttalam alone carries about four-fifths of the national total. The filing names only these three of the 12.
That concentration is consistent with where this article has been tracking the reservoir openings: Deduru Oya, Rajanganaya and Thabbowa all discharge into the North Western basin, and Thabbowa’s Mee Oya releases run through the Puttalam district. Madampe, where the drowning occurred, sits in that same basin.
Displacement
182 people from 67 families are in four safety centres, in Colombo, Ratnapura and Mannar. A further 60 people from 12 families are staying with relatives — a category the earlier tally did not count at all.
Two incidents reported in detail
- A tree fell on a house at Urugala East, Ingiriya, in the Kalutara district, injuring the house owner, who was admitted to Horana Hospital. The house was partially damaged. This is the one injury in the national count.
- A tree fell across the Panadura–Ratnapura road at Nambapana, temporarily blocking traffic. It has since been removed.
Arnab is now a cyclonic storm
The Department of Meteorology says the deep depression over the east-central Bay of Bengal has intensified into Cyclonic Storm “Arnab”, and is expected to intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm over the west-central Bay, according to the bulletin issued at 4 p.m. on Monday.
The filing places the system about 1,100 km north-east of Kankesanthurai, moving north-westwards with a strong westward component — but attributes that position to 8.30 a.m. the previous day, not to the 4 p.m. bulletin it is otherwise reporting. Given this outlet’s established habit of writing weather copy a day ahead of its own timestamp (see the caution above), the position should be read as a fix of record rather than a current location.
Reconciling the two tallies — and why they cannot simply be added
The figures in this update do not continue the 10,311 count in the headline above; they diverge from it in both directions.
| Earlier tally (NewsFirst, 25 Oct) | Latest report (DMC via DM, 26 Oct) | |
|---|---|---|
| People affected | 10,311 | more than 10,500 |
| Districts | 21 | 12 |
| Houses destroyed | 28 | 2 |
| Houses partially damaged | 1,807 | 215 |
| In safety centres | 67 people / 23 families | 182 people / 67 families |
| Deaths | not given | 1 |
| Window stated | no | yes — 23–26 Oct |
The affected-persons figure barely moves while the district count, the destroyed-house count and the damaged-house count all fall sharply. A cumulative count cannot fall. So the two are not successive readings of the same series: at least one of them is drawn on a different basis — a different time window, a different incident set, or a different definition of “affected”.
The later report is the one that states its basis, covering 23–26 October. The earlier figure, relayed without a window, cannot be placed against it. This desk is not able to say which basis the 10,311 figure used, and neither filing explains the difference. Readers should treat the 23–26 October figures as the current official account of this spell and the earlier numbers as a separate, unexplained reading — not as an earlier point on the same curve.
The displacement figure is the one that moved in the direction the weather did: people in safety centres have risen from 67 to 182.
Update, Monday night: a red marine warning, and a fixed landfall time
The Department of Meteorology issued a red warning for strong winds and very rough seas at 8 p.m. on Monday, valid for 12 hours, as Cyclonic Storm “Arnab” is expected to intensify further, the Daily Mirror reported at 9.37 p.m. The warning was issued by the Natural Hazards Early Warning Centre and covers the Bay of Bengal and the deep and shallow sea areas around Sri Lanka.
This filing also resolves the position ambiguity recorded above. It places the storm at 15.5°N, 87.8°E — about 1,050 km north-east of Kankesanthurai — at 2.30 p.m. on Monday, a fix attributed to Monday itself rather than to the previous morning. It is the first position in this account that can be read as current.
The system is forecast to move west-north-westwards, intensify into a severe cyclonic storm over the west-central Bay, and become a very severe cyclonic storm on Tuesday, making landfall on India’s Andhra Pradesh coast at about 11.30 a.m. on 28 October. That is a specific time and place for a landfall this desk had previously been able to describe only as a window.
What the warning covers
Within the warned sea areas, winds may reach 80–100 km/h with heavy thundershowers and wave heights of three to four metres, producing very rough conditions.
Naval and fishing communities have been strongly advised not to venture into the sea area bounded by latitudes 10°N–20°N and longitudes 80°E–95°E until further notice. Those already at sea in that box have been told to move clear of the danger zones and to monitor forecasts.
Separately, the deep and shallow sea areas from Colombo to Mullaitivu via Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Pottuvil and Batticaloa are expected to turn very rough at times, with winds rising to 60–65 km/h — a lower threshold than the Bay of Bengal box, and the one that bears on Sri Lankan coastal fishing.
The red warning as reported carries no casualty or damage forecast for land areas, and the filing does not say whether any fishing fleet is currently at sea inside the warned box, or whether the Navy or the Department of Fisheries has issued a recall.
Not reported
The gaps recorded in this section were identified against the original 25 October tally. Several are closed by the 26 October situation report set out in the update above — which gives a district breakdown, a death and injury count, and a stated window. They are kept here because they still describe the earlier figure, which has not been explained or withdrawn.
The DMC tally as relayed does not break the figures down by district, name the worst-affected areas, give a death or injury count for the period, or state the window the numbers cover — so it cannot be compared directly against the centre’s earlier releases. Sri Lanka has 25 districts, so 21 affected is most of the country, but the filing does not say which four are excluded.
The 10,311 figure itself remains single-sourced. The Daily Mirror filings added above corroborate the DMC’s response and the Met Department’s forecast, but neither repeats the affected-persons tally. A search of Ada Derana, Daily Mirror, Island and Daily FT for the same figures returned only the centre’s earlier and unrelated tallies — 441,590 affected during Cyclone Ditwah, a 16,345 figure, and 5,074 from a September spell — none of which is this one. DMC bulletins recur under near-identical headlines with different numbers, and those older figures are not applicable here.
On the reservoirs, most of this is now answered. Sunday’s Rajanganaya and Deduru Oya filings gave no discharge rate, no water level and no total gate count, and the Rajanganaya filing carried no downstream advisory at all. Monday’s Irrigation Department statements close three of those gaps: discharge rates are now published for both (~5,300 and ~2,300 cusecs), Rajanganaya’s gate count and per-gate opening heights are given, and a downstream advisory for the lower Kala Oya basin has been issued. The Kalawewa filing had already supplied a water level and a full discharge and inflow breakdown.
What is still missing on the reservoirs: no water level for Rajanganaya, Deduru Oya or Thabbowa, so none of the three can be read as a percentage of capacity; no inflow figures, so it cannot be said whether any of them is still filling as Kalawewa was; no total gate count for any tank other than Rajanganaya; and no filing names the villages or divisions at risk below any of them. Thabbowa’s opening is attributed only to “the engineers in charge” rather than to the department.
Kalawewa’s own filing still does not say how many spill gates the tank has in total, name the downstream divisions along the Kala Oya, or carry a public advisory of the kind issued for Deduru Oya — it states only that this is not a disaster situation. It attributes the “may open further overnight” assessment to Hiru’s correspondent rather than to the Irrigation Department, and does not say what the reservoir’s full supply level is, so the 81,475 acre-feet cannot be read as a percentage of capacity.
