The death toll from three days of torrential rain and landslides in Sri Lanka has risen to 37, with more than 150 people missing and rescuers still pulling bodies from the mud.
President Maithripala Sirisena flew to the remote slopes of the country’s Central Hills, where landslides buried villages in Kegalle district. “The loss is devastating,” he said on Twitter.
The Disaster Management Centre’s updated toll came after bodies were recovered in Aranayake and neighbouring Bulathkohupitiya.
“A total of 37 people have been killed, 28 wounded … in weather-related incidents in the past three days,” the DMC spokesman Pradeep Kodippili said.
AG Kamala, 52, who had just returned to her house in Siripura village when the landslides hit, told Associated Press: “I heard a huge sound like a plane crashing into the Earth. I opened my door. I could not believe my eyes, as I saw something like a huge fireball rolling down the mountain and again a huge sound.”