Ditwah wake-up call demands a national volunteer community service for rebuilding Sri Lanka

The Tsunami of 2004 struck our coasts, but the recent Cyclone Ditwah has delivered an unprecedented blow, devastating and traumatising the entire country.

- BY EMERITUS PROFESSOR NIMAL GUNATILLEKE

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake rightly called it the "largest and most challenging natural disaster" in Sri Lanka's history.The toll is staggering: Over 600 people were confirmed dead, with hundreds still missing. More than 2 million citizens - nearly one in ten people have been affected. 41,000 to 86,000 houses are damaged or completely destroyed. The damage is widespread, with 22 of the island's 25 districts declared disaster-affected areas. A provisional economic damage estimate reaching up to USD 7 billion-a figure that instantly consumes about 7% of our national GDP. This was not merely a natural disaster; it was a crisis amplified by systemic failure, culminating in a catastrophe that now demands a radical, long-term policy response.

Unlike the Tsunami, the destruction to our vital inland infrastructure roads, bridges, railway lines, and power networkshas been colossal, crippling the nation's ability to recover. Over 25,000 members of the tri-forces have been mobilised, and the nation rightly hails their courageous and relentless efforts in rescue and relief. They should now be graduated from 'Rana Viruvo' to RUN VIRUVO considering the efforts they are still putting into the relief operations in this unprecedented calamity. But the scale of the rebuilding effort requires a permanently sustained unified national mechanism, perhaps learning from their rich experiences.

Why did devastation reach this cataclysmic level?

Unlike a sudden earthquake/Tsunami, a cyclone's path is largely traceable. Yet, the "postmortem" on Ditwah reveals a horrifying truth: the storm's devastation was amplified by our own institutional failures.