Transition Recovery Support to Flood and Landslides Disasters in Sri Lanka
Response and Resettlement in Flood Effected Areas Following the May 2003 Floods and Landslides
Rain Water Harvesting Project in Monaragala and Hambantota Districts
Disaster Risk Information Management
Transition Recovery Support to Flood and Landslides Disasters in Sri Lanka.
This is a project jointly implemented by the NDMC of the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Social welfare and the UNDP SRI LANKA. It ahs a component for recovery from the 2003 floods and landslide disasters which includes incorporating risk reduction measures and a component for risk reduction implemented in partnership with the national, district, divisional and village level government administration in the area of disaster risk management.
The awareness and interested generated for disaster risk mitigation in the affected districts following the May 2003 flood and landslides events were quite high. This became an invaluable opportunity for the NDMC and the UNDP Sri Lanka in partnership with the district administration to conduct lessons learnt workshops in all the five affected districts. These workshops provide a platform for relevant stakeholders from both national and district levels to revisit the disaster events and review what aspects of response and recovery had been done right and what aspects needed improvement. The workshops also led to the formulation of district disaster preparedness and response plans in the five districts and establishment of disaster management committees, in line with the draft National disaster management plan. In addition, the district administrations were mobilised to engage in preparation of divisional level plans and community contingency plans. Gradually the focus is being shifted from disaster response to disaster risk reduction by linking the vulnerability reduction and mitigation activities identified in the divisional plans with the development plans and the budgets.
Simultaneously, recognizing that NDMC at the national level is best positioned to act as a repository of disaster related information and coordinate response, the UNDP Sri Lanka is assisting NDMC setup a disaster database that will capture occurrences of all natural disasters over the last 30 years. This will provide a much needed policy tool to analyse trends and patterns of the occurrences of disasters. In addition UNDP Sri Lanka is also working with NDMC in strengthening its information coordination and dissemination capacities by training its staff and setting up its website.
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Response and Resettlement in Flood Effected Areas Following the May 2003 Floods and Landslides.
Torrential rains accompanied by heavy winds experienced in central and southwestern coastal areas of Sri Lanka on 17 th and 18 th of May 2003 were the heaviest since 1947. Floodwaters damaged over 20600 houses and destroyed 10,065 houses. Many buildings were submerged with power and telephone lines and sections roads and bridges being destroyed. Numerous villages were totally or partially submerged. Over 120,000 people had to be evacuated to camps. The persons either dead or missing were assessed as 252. Some of those missing were buried in land slides.the worst affected areas were the five districts of Ratnapura, Kalutara, Galle, Matara and Hambantota.
The following series of activities were undertaken to manage this extreme disaster event. The immediate needs for emergency relief and reconstruction were assessed by a special team of experts and a detailed assessment of the impact of the floods was undertaken subsequently utilizing the provincial administrative set up and the district technical committees.
As an immediate response 6740 wells that were flooded were cleaned and chlorinated to make them suitable for use as drinking water sources. A total of 2678 latrines were rehabilitated with assistance provided by especially by UNICEF and other voluntary organizations.
Schools Hospitals and other infrastructure facilities were rehabilitated mobilizing the assistance provided by National and International donors. Credit facilities granted by the world bank and the Asian Development Bank were utilized for rehabilitation work in infrastructure facilities.
This experience gave rise to the creation of a programe for disaster preparedness and response which included the following components
• Establishment of a multi disciplinary National Disaster Operations Centre.
• Improvement in communication and information management and establishment of a resources database.
• A Geographic Information System to determine priority areas for disaster mitigation and preparedness and creation of suitable hazard maps.
• Conducting awareness creation at village, district and national levels including school children
• Capacity building for national emergency response.
The rehabilitation and reconstruction programme of damaged housing were implemented with the aim of risk reduction in building in areas vulnerable to flood and landslides. The affected families were settled in no risk areas, identified by the Scientists and Geologists.
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Rain Water Harvesting Project in Monaragala and Hambantota Districts
Drinking water shortage in the drought prone areas of Monaragala and Hambantota districts has become a recurring problem during drought periods for the residents of these areas. Depletion of the supply in the regular water sources during drought and the ill effects of using tube well water for drinking purpose due to the preference of hardness and soluble fluorides, subject the poor people in the area to serve hardships.
In order to mitigate such impacts of drought the NDMC has implemented a pilot project on rainwater harvesting in the most vulnerable villages of Meegaswewa, Kotiyagala, Ihala Kumbukwewa in the two districts targeting 180 families with 900 beneficiaries. The basic scope of the proposal was to upgrade the roofs of houses to a suitable level to serve as catchments for rainwater and construct water tanks in the premises to store the water.
Objective of the pilot project was to test out the sustainability and wide spread application of the project concept within the capacity limitations of the participants. NDMC accordingly expected to reach out to a larger number of beneficiaries in the next phase in association with the Open University of Sri Lanka, ITDG, Divisional Secretary, the Social Services Officer, Samurdi Development Officer and Agricultural Production Assistants attached to the Divisional Secretariats.
The concept included providing technical assistant and financial grants by NDMC and the above partners to the beneficiary families to supplement the cost sharing contributions being made by them in cash and kind. A part of the local building materials and unskilled labour required came as the contribution from the beneficiary family, which was about 25% of the total cost.
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Disaster Risk Information Management
A recent initiative by the UNDP Sri Lanka to assist in building a systemic historical disaster inventory that covers a 25-30 year period of disaster losses has led to the NDMC to commence an activity with the following objectives.
To take stock of disaster information sources and existing or developing disaster information systems and inventories in Sri Lanka.
To assess the possibility of adaptation in Sri Lanka the DesInventar methodology which has been successfully implemented in some Latin American countries and in India and Nepal.
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