Sri Lanka is to run disaster preparedness drills in landslide-prone districts and launch a public awareness campaign, as authorities brace for El Niño conditions to swing the country from drought to heavy rain over the next two months, the Daily Mirror reported.
The decisions were taken at the fifth meeting of the Special Cabinet Subcommittee and the accompanying Officials’ Committee on El Niño, held at the Presidential Secretariat on 14 September and chaired by Environment Minister Dr. Dhammika Patabendi.
From too little water to too much
The committees expect the El Niño phenomenon to shift Sri Lanka from the prevailing dry conditions to wetter weather over the coming two months, with particular attention paid to the risk of increased rainfall triggering floods and landslides.
That is a reversal of the emergency the country has been managing all season. National reservoir storage stood at 33.6 per cent of capacity in mid-September, agriculture authorities have moved to advance the next cultivation season to catch rainwater rather than draw down irrigation storage, and the World Meteorological Organization expects the event to run to February 2027 and turn “very strong”.
The turn may already be under way: the Met Department issued advisories the same week warning of falls above 100mm in several provinces.
What was decided
Three measures came out of the meeting:
- Disaster preparedness drills to familiarise communities with what to do in an emergency
- A public awareness programme through electronic and print media
- Discussion of operational centres at Divisional Secretariat level so communities can respond to potential disasters
The committees also reviewed progress on relief measures for people already affected by the prevailing El Niño conditions.
The subcommittee has been the government’s main coordinating body on the phenomenon since it was appointed by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, having previously examined the risk to jobs and output and, a day before this meeting, contingency plans for essential food imports.
The Daily Mirror does not name the landslide-prone districts where drills will be held, give a date or budget for them, say how many Divisional Secretariat operations centres are contemplated, or state which relief measures were reviewed and what they have cost so far. It also does not say whether Minister Patabendi’s remarks on food import contingencies, reported a day earlier, were made at this same meeting.
Update (September 17): a two-week deadline
The Divisional Secretariat centres have moved from discussion to commitment. Minister Patabendi said the emergency disaster response units will be set up within the next two weeks, NewsFirst reported on Thursday morning.
The Minister said the local emergency response centres will operate in coordination with the District Disaster Management Centres, placing them beneath the existing district structure rather than alongside it. The preparedness drills agreed at the 14 September meeting will also begin within the same two-week window.
That answers one of the questions left open by the Daily Mirror’s account — whether the centres had been approved or merely canvassed — but leaves the others standing. Neither outlet has said how many divisions will get a centre, what each will be staffed or equipped with, what the programme costs, or which divisions are being prioritised. No date has been given for the first drill.
NewsFirst spells the Minister’s name Dhammika Patabendi, as the Daily Mirror did on this story; the Daily Mirror rendered it Dammika Patabendi in its report on the UNCCD summit a week earlier.
