Lets get the location of this mudslide correct. This mudslide has been “above” the smallish town of Koslanda, near which you have the best-known water-fall of Sri Lanka – Diyaluma. The name of the plantation is Meeriyabedda Estate. It is situated in the Administrative “Secretarial Division” of Haldummulla. The small town of Haldummulla is on the busy highway from Badulla to Colombo, and consequently, it is part of the ribbon development along that road. Koslanda is “remote”; if you find that the “A4 Highway” from Colombo to Hambantota passes through it, you will be getting misled. Much has changed after we became an independent nation in 1948. All this area is in the Administrative District of Badulla. The Badulla and Moneragala Districts together constitute “Uva”, which is now the poorest of the nine Provinces of Sri Lanka. This was not the case when “Ceylon Tea” was much more important than it now is, and when a relatively large number of Britishers lived on the plantations. The people who have been buried in the mudslide are the descendants of the cheap “labour” “imported” by the British less than 150 years ago. The have virtually no education. The largest cities in the Uva Province are the ancient Badulla and the more recent Bandarawela (where I live). The “Up-country Railway Line” runs from Colombo to Badulla through the town of Bandarawela. Bandarawela has grown (owing to its favourable climate) after the construction of the railroad. Koslanda is quite close, but is separated from here by the high mountains of the Poonagala Range. The rain in Bandarawela abated somewhat after the landslide, but much more is forecast from today onwards. Rainfall in Koslanda could be significantly different owing to the Poonagala mountains. There is a factor other than high rainfall that may have contributed. A thirty kilometer tunnel is being blasted from Dyaraba (near Welimada) to Karandagolla (near Wellawaya). At certain points this could be 300 metres below the surface, at others only about 100 metres. Wellawaya and Poonagala are quite close to Koslanda, and the effects of this work that has been in progress for three years already, ought to be considered. Theres four years to go; the work is being handled by Iranian engineers who are, without doubt quite competent, but who will be concentrating on fulfilling the contract that they have been given. The tunnel is meant to divert water from the Mahaweli river system, which empties in to the sea at Trincomalee in the North-East of the island, to Hambantota in the South. There is to be a huge under-ground reservoir close to Koslanda, and the water will fall 600 metres to generate electricity. This is not a totally crack-pot scheme; the possibilities were known for three decades at least. One of the other problems is that you get your reports from English-using Sri Lankans living in Colombo. The privately-run English Language T.V. Station MTV (which does not support the government) started a bulletin with an account of how their staff had “heroically” set out in a helicopter to “capture” aerial “footage” for viewers who wanted the sensational news. All those buried are surely dead – choked by mud and water. What happens to all those orphans? They will be reasonably looked after for a month or two. Thereafter? Well, weve already had the (Sinhalese) Minister of Disaster Management, Amaraweera, stating that it was all the fault of the victims since they were warned to move out of the area many years ago. But then, being Tamils of Indian Descent, they may not have been allocated alternative land. By the way, this Minister is not in the Cabinet of President Rajapaksa. We have over a hundred Ministers in this country. Investigate, if you are concerned! As far as the politics go, the two Thondaman cousins (remember the pre-election footage – early September 2014 - of Senthil Thondamans Hummer Jeep that mowed down a number of people in the Main Street of Bandarawela) - well, these Thondamans, control the thinking of the “estate labour”. As for the “out of control Hummer”, the thinking in Bandarqwela is that it may indeed have been an accident, with the driver being unable to control a highly sophisticated vehicle. Im sorry that Im not able to provide links to Google Earth, but one of your editors would do well to locate on it the places named above. For the record, I am a retired Sinhalese man who worked for the State in the field of Education.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 06:20:32 +0000
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