Sri Lanka: UN helps Government respond to widespread floods

United Nations agencies are helping the Government of Sri Lanka address the humanitarian needs of more than 100,000 people affected by flash floods and landslides over the past month as heavy rains continue to fall.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is providing hygiene kits and water purification tablets as rising floodwaters threaten an outbreak of dengue fever. Measures have been taken to spray mosquito breeding sites.

According to latest information from local authorities and the Disaster Management Centre, over 105,000 people are affected, nearly 95,000 of them in five northern districts where several roads have been cut off or damaged by extensive flooding in the last week, hindering access, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

Conditions in some zones of the Menik Farm camp in Vavuniya, with some 20,000 internally displaced people, have deteriorated, with four blocks flooded, and four shelters have been damaged by strong winds, OCHA reported. Rising ground water levels have placed the camp’s water and sanitation infrastructure under pressure and overwhelmed the drainage system.