From flood relief to flood resilience: Rethinking housing for disaster-affected families

CYCLONE

- By Prof. N.S. Cooray

Ditwah, which formed on 26 November 2025, and lasted until 3 December 2025, was perhaps the deadliest natural disaster Sri Lanka has faced since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Most of the cyclone’s impact was concentrated in Sri Lanka, causing landslides and heavy flooding, killing over 600 people and causing extensive damage, including to housing. Flooding and landslides are not new to Sri Lanka. Each time cyclones and heavy rains strike the country, the same disastrous images recur. Many people’s livelihoods are affected. Many children take shelter in schools, and homes are reduced to rubble. As usual, the Government responds quickly and appropriately with emergency relief and promises to engage in post-reconstruction of housing and to restore livelihoods as promptly as possible. However, many of these families return to the same area, and some of the rebuilt houses again stand in flood-prone areas, waiting for another disaster. As climate change makes extreme weather more frequent, Sri Lanka must move beyond short-term flood relief and begin investing in flood resilience strategies. Given this moment, the purpose of this writing is to propose a strategic rethink of how we support affected families who lose everything to disasters—not merely restoring what was lost, but rebuilding a sustainable housing scheme that is safer, smarter, and more sustainable.Although the writer lacks data on the economic conditions of the affected families, most are likely low-income, with few outliers who could afford to secure safe land and enough funds to build resilient housing. Some of those families were settled in vulnerable places by politicians for their own political gain. Therefore, the damage is not purely caused by nature but also by humans who do not care about the overall well-being of citizens or sustainability. The Government is seriously considering reconstruction. It has to spend a considerable amount of funds on rebuilding houses, using taxpayers’ money, domestic