Tuesday, 11 November 2014 00:14
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AFTER a flurry of activity, the Government on Sunday called off the search for bodies buried in the Meeriyabedda landslide. A decision was made to dedicate the site as a memorial complete with the names of those buried as earth and boulders crashed into an estimated 120 homes.
For the survivors and relatives it is a terrible anti-climax. The public can only hope this is the landslide to end all landslides as the Government moves ahead with its promises to build fresh homes for survivors as well as initiate large-scale resettlement for other plantation workers that will hopefully minimise such tragic loss of life and property in the future.
Several issues came to the forefront during the last few weeks. Initially, as the horrific disaster unfolded, there was a massive need for accurate details including the numbers of dead and missing. The Government and the plantation company both failed in this instance to supply accurate numbers to the media, resulting in misinformation becoming the currency of the day.
The company defended the lack of details by insisting the office where residential details were kept was also lost in the landslide but it is baffling why the company did not at least take better care of their records given there had been serious and consistent landslide warnings since 2005.
Another pressing point which has received little notice is why the company allowed their workers to remain in an area literally embedded with such danger for so long?
Keeping track of people is difficult at the best of times but Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera was quick to quote hundreds of missing to the media within hours of the landslide. This information was of course relayed by the media, who placed emphasis on it because it came from a reliable source, but subsequent events proved the numbers were perhaps significantly exaggerated.
With recovery efforts being called off the numbers conundrum may never be satisfactorily resolved. But it highlights the holes in the Government’s disaster management structures and their efforts to cover it up by blaming the media rather than focusing on having reliable information dissemination outlets.
One positive outcome from the reporting was of course the aid. Condolence messages aside, massive amounts of relief and funding have been flowing into the Government from all sides. Foreign Governments and foreign companies working in Sri Lanka along with other well-wishers have been handing fat cheques to top Government officials including Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa and Investment Promotion Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena. Yet there is little information of where this money is going and how it will be used. Given the high level of corruption in Sri Lanka, mapping out relief funds has become an essential but ignored part of disaster management.
In fact the donations are so generous they should ideally be funnelled into building homes for the Meeriyabedda survivors and their brothers in other landslide prone regions. The Government has taken a positive step by calling on companies to allocate land - which the Urban Development Authority (UDA) will build houses on - but there needs to be a more transparent and time bound policy in place.
With presidential and parliamentary elections around the corner, sustainability of these proposals is under threat. Moreover, hill country people not in landslide prone areas cannot be left out of the housing program. The Planters Association, together with relevant public institutions and the ministry, have to ensure a change in officials does not result in a change of plans.
