The Hon. R. G. Wijerathna
Hon. R. G. Wijerathna described severe disaster impacts in Nuwara Eliya District, including 71 deaths, 35 missing persons, about 40,000 affected people, and 24,000 people in 185 safe centres, while noting progress in restoring roads, electricity, and water supplies. He thanked district officials, armed forces, Indian helicopter support, utility agencies, and volunteers, including a group from Kalutara assisting in Nuwara Eliya town. He argued that past politically driven land allocations, forest clearance, and unsafe construction worsened landslide vulnerability, and said timely evacuations helped minimize the death toll despite extensive destruction.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, on this final day of the 2026 Budget debate, speaking for Nuwara Eliya District, which suffered severe destruction:
¶ 02 This disaster spared no direction—North or South; hill country, low country, wet or dry zones; Sinhala, Tamil, or Muslim. In Nuwara Eliya, 71 lives have been lost and 35 are missing. About 40,000 people remain affected; around 24,000 persons are still in 185 safe centres. Under the leadership of the District Secretary, officials are making great sacrifices; I thank them. With the Sri Lanka Air Force and Indian helicopters—33 sorties—aid reached inaccessible areas. There is renewed hope. About 70% of roads, power, and water systems have been restored due to day‑and‑night efforts of RDA, PRDA, CEB, and NWSDB.
¶ 03 People across the country, especially those who love the central hills, rushed with tools and supplies to help the displaced. I pay tribute to them. Notably, under “Kalutara to Nuwara Eliya,” about 380 people from Kalutara are here today working to restore the inundated Nuwara Eliya town.
¶ 04 We must also recall the causes that made our district vulnerable: protected forests were opened for political reasons and turned into private holdings; unsuitable constructions and roads were built; previous landslides occurred; even when alternative lands were given, they were allocated on political whims, and there was no policy to vest the unstable land back with the State. Thus the same places slid again. As of last evening, torrential rain continued; 480 people from four GN divisions were again moved to safe centres.
¶ 05 Some figures being thrown around do not align. Consider the relation between destroyed houses and deaths/missing. If an average of three persons per house, deaths should be roughly triple the number of totally destroyed houses—yet it is not so. This shows that because the risk was understood and timely action taken to evacuate house by house, the death toll was minimized. Let us, without malice, help the nation rise again.
¶ 06 Thank you.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Friday, 5 December 2025 ·No. 23059 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. R. G. Wijerathna. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 5 December 2025. No. 23059. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/23522