The Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources has told every Sri Lankan multi-day fishing vessel working the deep sea around the Andaman Islands to leave immediately and run for safer water, as strong winds and rough seas build over the coming days.
Director General Susantha Kahawatte said the low-pressure system now developing east of Sri Lanka, near the Andaman Islands, is expected to intensify gradually and move towards India, and could disturb sea conditions for several days. He was speaking at a media briefing, the Daily Mirror reported.
Vessels operating around the Andamans and in the northern Bay of Bengal have been instructed to move southwards, towards Sri Lanka, to put distance between themselves and the system.
Boats are still out there
The significant line in the Department’s account is not the instruction but the compliance. Kahawatte said several vessels were still fishing in the affected areas, and warned that carrying on would expose both boats and crews to serious risk from strong winds and rough seas.
Small-scale fishermen in other waters around Sri Lanka were advised to check weather and sea conditions closely before going out. Kahawatte said no decision has been taken to suspend fishing nationally — the Department is monitoring the situation and will issue further instructions as required.
The island is not in the system’s path. Its fishing fleet is.
The two advisories issued on Monday appear to point in opposite directions, and read together they explain each other.
The Met Department’s position, set out by Merril Mendis, Director of the Forecasting Division, is that the low developing in the Bay of Bengal near the Andaman Islands is not expected to strike Sri Lanka directly. It is forecast to deepen — possibly into a depression and then a deep depression — as it tracks towards the Indian coast, NewsFirst reported. What reaches the island is the wind flow drawn across it by the system, which is driving the rain over the south-west.
That is why a storm which will not hit Sri Lanka still requires Sri Lankan boats to run. Multi-day vessels fish far from home — around the Andamans and the northern Bay of Bengal, which is precisely where the system is deepening. The fleet is inside the weather the island is outside of.
Monday’s precipitation and wind charts show the pattern plainly: the heaviest rainfall sits over the northern Bay of Bengal towards the Andaman side, while the streamlines curl around it and sweep across Sri Lanka from the south-west — rain on the island, but the core of the system well to its north-east.
Rain on land until about 25 September
Mendis said more than 100 mm of rain could fall in the Western, Sabaragamuwa and North Western provinces and in the Galle, Matara, Kandy and Nuwara Eliya districts, with slopes near the hills among the wettest. Several spells of rain are possible in Mannar and the North Central Province, and evening thundershowers in parts of Uva, Batticaloa and Ampara.
He put an end-date on it that no earlier bulletin has carried: the rainy conditions are expected to continue until around 25 September. Residents of low-lying ground near river valleys and of landslide-prone areas were urged to stay alert — the same population already covered by the NBRO’s red landslide warnings and the Gin Ganga and Kuda Ganga flood warnings.
Not reported
Neither outlet says how many Sri Lankan multi-day vessels are working the Andaman and northern Bay of Bengal grounds, how many are still out, how long a run south would take them, or whether the Navy or the Coast Guard has been placed on standby. Neither gives the system’s forecast intensity or the wind speeds expected in the fishing grounds, and neither says what would trigger a national suspension of fishing.
