Sri Lanka issues fresh landslide warnings

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan authorities issued fresh landslide warnings yesterday with rains lashing areas already devastated by a powerful cyclone, as the death toll rose to 618.

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A flood victim restores his belongings in the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah, along railway tracks in Kandy on Saturday.

(AFP)

A chain of tropical storms and monsoonal rains has battered Southeast and South Asia, setting off landslides, flooding vast tracts and cutting off communities from Sumatra island's rainforests to the highland plantations of Sri Lanka.

At least 1,812 people have been killed in the natural disasters rolling across Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam over the past two weeks.

Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto yesterday vowed to step up aid, with demonstrators rallying after the country’s death toll surpassed 900.

More than two million people in Sri Lanka — nearly 10% of the population — have been affected by last week's floods and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah, the worst on the island this century.

The Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said monsoon storms were adding more rain and making hillsides unstable, including in the central mountainous region and the northwestern midlands.

Helicopters and planes were being used yesterday to supply communities cut off by landslides in the centre of the country.