Sunday 6 February 2011

Sri Lanka - another forgotten flood

One month ago today (Jan 6, 2011), I blogged about the Philippines floods, which had been forgotten as the world watched what was happening in Australia. The world also seems to have overlooked the current monsoon floods in Sri Lanka.


At least 14 people have been killed, and more than a million have had their homes flooded. A quarter of a million are now living in shelters provided by the government. Roads and fields are under water across the east, centre and north of the island.


Those areas were also hit by floods caused by heavy rain last month, when 43 people were killed. The United Nations appealed for 51 million dollars in emergency aid to help the victims.


Perhaps the deadliest monsoon flood of all time was the one that struck India in September 1978, and was made even more disastrous by a cyclone the following month. An estimated 15,000 people were killed.

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