Weather disasters: Sri Lanka flooded by policy blunders, weak enforcement and environmental crime – Climate Expert

Sri Lanka has once again been submerged not by unprecedented rainfall but by decades of political negligence, environmental crime, and institutional paralysis, says a climate expert.

- BY IFHAM NIZAM

The latest floods have exposed a truth long avoided by those in power: this disaster was engineered, brick by brick, landfill by landfill, approval by approval, he says.

Sri Lankan Scientist Dr. Thasun Amarasinghe working at the Climate Research Centre in Indonesia describes the unfolding situation in Sri Lanka, with precision and anger that few scientists are willing to voice publicly.

“These are not natural disasters. These are governance disasters. Sri Lanka destroyed the very systems that protected it. What’s happening now is the predictable result of political mismanagement,” Dr. Amarasinghe told The Sunday Island.

“Wetlands: Politicians saw land. Scientists saw protection. Guess who won?

“For decades, Sri Lankan wetlands — the nation’s most effective natural flood-control mechanism — have been bulldozed, filled, encroached, and sold. Many of these developments were approved despite warnings from environmental scientists, hydrologists, and even state institutions.”

Dr. Amarasinghe said, “There is no mystery here. The science was clear for years. Wetlands absorb floodwater. Destroy them, and the water has nowhere to go. This is not climate change alone; it is the direct outcome of human decisions.”