Several main roads in Colombo went under water on Monday as heavy rain disrupted traffic across the city, while landslide early warnings remained in force for seven districts, Hiru News reported.
Police said Sri Sangaraja Mawatha, Kinsey Road, Panchikawatta Road and a section of Baseline Road were among the stretches flooded.
Where the landslide warnings apply
The landslide early warning was issued by the National Building Research Organisation, which Hiru renders as the National Building Research Institute. It breaks down as:
- Level 1 — the Badulla, Colombo, Kandy, Matale, Nuwara Eliya and Ratnapura districts
- Level 2 — the Bulathkohupitiya, Ruwanwella and Mawanella divisional secretariat areas in the Kegalle district
Six districts at Level 1 plus Kegalle at Level 2 is the seven in the headline count. Level 1 is the lowest of the NBRO’s warning grades; no evacuation order is reported in either filing.
The Department of Meteorology said on Monday afternoon that rainfall is expected to increase over the next three days.
The rain has arrived ahead of the system that was forecast
This is the weather our amber advisory report of 11 October was tracking. That advisory covered severe lightning and flagged a low-pressure area expected to form in the Bay of Bengal by 13 October, with the Met Department and NewsFirst both pointing to heavy rain from the 13th onwards. The flooding and the landslide warnings have come a day ahead of that, and the Met Department’s three-day outlook now runs past the point at which the advisory itself expires.
The warning area has also widened since the last comparable alert. On 4 October the NBRO warning covered 13 divisional secretariat divisions across four to five districts — individual divisions, named one by one. Monday’s warning places whole districts at Level 1, Colombo among them, which is a broader footprint than the earlier inter-monsoon alert rather than a continuation of it.
Not reported
Neither filing gives rainfall totals, says how long the roads were impassable, or reports any injuries, displacement or damage to property. Neither says whether schools, offices or rail services were affected, and no evacuation or relief measure is mentioned. The Disaster Management Centre is not quoted in either account.
No other verified newsroom had filed on the Colombo flooding at the time of writing; both sources here are Hiru News.
