The government has approved two parallel relief programmes for communities affected by Cyclone Ditwah, pairing 1,000 interim housing units with a separate effort to restore damaged places of worship, the Daily FT reported on Thursday.
Under the housing programme, 1,000 interim units will be built for families who lost homes and are currently living in safe centres, tents or partially damaged houses, the paper said. The package follows the coordination meeting at Army Headquarters chaired by Deputy Defence Minister Major General Aruna Jayasekara (Retd) on April 27, at which the Sri Lanka Army was tasked with engineering and construction across Kegalle, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Badulla. Site identification is being carried out with District Secretaries and the National Building Research Institute (NBRI).
The newly announced restoration of religious sites is a fresh element not previously covered. Cyclone Ditwah, which made landfall in November 2025, killed 646 people, displaced 2.2 million and caused USD 4.1 billion in damage, hitting temples, kovils, churches and mosques in upcountry and Northern districts.
The twin rollout adds to a recovery effort already running on multiple tracks. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has set an end-May deadline for Rs. 500,000 partial-damage compensation payments, the Cabinet has extended the State of Emergency for a second time, and a Prime Minister-led task force on housing payments is in place. The CRIB has imposed a six-month credit-relief window for affected borrowers, and the FAO has rolled out Rs. 84.6m of fertiliser e-vouchers for Anuradhapura farmers facing the next planting cycle.
Source: Daily FT.
