Heavy rain that began at about 3pm on Monday submerged the bus stand in Hatton town, and an earth slip later came down onto the Hatton–Nuwara Eliya main road at Kudagama, disrupting traffic on both.
Rainwater running along the main road caused severe disruption to traffic in the M.R. area of the town, Hiru News reported, citing its area correspondent.
A large volume of water came down into the bus stand from Gaminipura, the area immediately above it, and a risk of earth slipping has arisen at that location as a result.
Water also leaked into the accounts section of the Hatton Zonal Office, leaving officers working there in considerable difficulty.
Rubbish in the floodwater
The report carries an unusual detail about what worsened the blockage. Some traders who had come into Hatton from outside areas for the Deepavali festival threw bags of waste from their shops into the water flowing down the main road, and that refuse obstructed traffic along the route.
The earth slip at Kudagama
Later in the afternoon, a mound of earth collapsed onto the carriageway in the Hatton–Kudagama area of the Hatton–Nuwara Eliya main road, Hiru reported in a second filing. The area correspondent said traffic along the road was obstructed once the earth came down.
The two filings were published about 50 minutes apart, the flooding report at 4.40pm and the earth slip at 5.31pm.
Context
The central hills are a separate weather system from the one that has dominated coverage over the past four days. Colombo and the Western Province were hit by flash floods on Friday, and an amber flood warning was issued for the Attanagalu Oya on Monday. The Met Department has warned that another atmospheric disturbance is developing over the Bay of Bengal.
The Hatton–Nuwara Eliya road runs through steep tea country and is among the routes most exposed to slope failure during sustained rain. Earlier this month the National Building Research Organisation issued landslide warnings across several hill districts.
Not reported
Neither filing gives a rainfall measurement for Hatton, reports any injuries, or says whether the road at Kudagama was closed outright or reduced to one lane. Neither names the agency clearing the earth slip, gives an estimate for when the road will reopen, or reports any NBRO assessment of the slip risk identified above the bus stand at Gaminipura. No evacuation or relief measure is mentioned.
A note on sourcing. Both reports come from Hiru News, which counts as a single newsroom. A search of the Daily Mirror and NewsFirst rails and of verified outlets found no independent account of either incident at the time of writing; the results returned were older hill-country weather stories from previous seasons.
