A special emergency response task force led by the Colombo Municipal Council, drawing in the Tri-Forces, the Police and other state agencies, is to be established to deal with flash floods and similar emergencies in the capital — on the instruction of the Secretary to the President.
Dr Nandika Sanath Kumanayake issued the directive at a meeting he chaired at the Presidential Secretariat on Saturday afternoon, convened to establish what caused Friday evening’s sudden flooding in Colombo and what could be done immediately to prevent a recurrence, the Daily Mirror reported. Hiru News, filing in Sinhala, reported the same instruction.
The capacity gap
CMC officials told the meeting that roughly 129mm of rain fell within one hour on Friday, far beyond the capacity of the city’s drainage system, which was built to carry about 30mm of rain per hour. Both newsrooms carry that pair of figures.
What the meeting identified
Officials said the indiscriminate disposal of waste had blocked a number of drains and canals, obstructing the flow of rainwater. The meeting pressed for blocked waterways to be cleared urgently and for legal action against those responsible for improper dumping.
Unauthorised constructions inside CMC limits were named as a second obstruction to drains and canals. Officials discussed drawing up plans to remove those structures and relocate the affected residents elsewhere. The meeting also called for short-, medium- and long-term plans to upgrade the city’s drainage, and for public awareness work on waste disposal.
Mayor Vraie Cally Balthazaar, Deputy Mayor Hemantha Kumara, senior CMC officials and representatives of the Road Development Authority, the Sri Lanka Land Development Corporation, the Urban Development Authority, the Tri-Forces and the Police attended. The Daily Mirror’s second filing on the meeting, which credits the President’s Media Division, adds members of the Clean Sri Lanka Task Force to that list.
A note on the 129mm figure
The same number has now been reported against two different time windows. This desk reported on Friday that the Met Department’s Colombo station recorded 129mm over a few hours that evening; the CMC has now presented 129mm as a one-hour total. The Met Department’s director general separately put the intensity at more than 100mm in under an hour. The readings come from different bodies and are not reconciled in any filing, so the window attached to the 129mm figure should be read as the CMC’s account of it.
This is a distinct body from the Presidential Task Force appointed for post-Ditwah recovery. Earlier coverage: the mayor’s emergency meeting and the Met advisory.
