DISASTERS are something that Sri Lankans have learned to live with. From two Marxist insurgencies in the 1970s and 1980s to the 1983 riots against Tamils and the subsequent 30-year civil war that ensued, ending in 2009 with the government’s military victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels, Sri Lankans are known for their resilience in the face of the worst of man-made disasters.

However, continuous and systematic yearly natural disasters, as are being seen in the modern age, are alien to the country, as is systemic preparedness to counter them. Sri Lanka was a densely forested island at the time of colonisation that began in 1505 with the Portuguese invasion. After passing through the hands of the Dutch, the island ended as a British colony in 1815. The first systematic felling and clearing of the island’s mountains began during the rule of the British to make way for coffee and tea cultivation, laying the foundation for serious environmental upheavals. The subsequent population increase made way for large areas of land to be cleared for agriculture and the creation of houses, with many constructions being ad hoc and badly monitored.

Annual droughts, floods and landslides are now a worryingly common occurrence. During the years 2016 and 2017, Sri Lanka was deprived of normal rainfall and when rain did arrive, it was deadly. In May 2016, the country witnessed floods and landslides in Aranayake in Ratnapura district that displaced nearly 500 persons and in 2014, in Meeriyabedda in Badulla district, at least 215 persons were killed. By the end of May this year, the country, while still in the throes of prolonged droughts, was suddenly battered by two days of flash floods and landslides in 15 districts. Over 200 bodies have been recovered so far with 100 more persons missing and over 604,700 people affected.

It is usually the less affluent who are affected by calamities such as droughts and floods, owing often to their occupying river-front land and areas vulnerable to environmental hazards. Although the Disaster Management Centre was set up in the country after the deadly tsunami of 2004, the Sri Lankan government is yet to prepare itself for the long term in facing natural disasters. Meanwhile, the May-end calamity revealed a side to the multi-ethnic nation that often goes unrecorded.

Just prior to the May floods and landslides, there was the saga of Buddhist extremist rhetoric unleashed by a miniscule minority, represented by the now infamous group Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and its general secretary, the saffron-robed Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara. This rhetoric and connected concerns received much local and international publicity, often with the general and incorrect portrayal of the BBS as representatives of the Buddhist clergy and the Buddhist people. However, the disaster the country just witnessed was a reminder about the true Sri Lanka that hardly sees the limelight — a Sri Lanka of unity, inhabited by people who help one another irrespective of race or religion. Amidst the death, mayhem and accusations of little done by the state, this unity was a silver lining in a country working towards post-war reconciliation.

“It is wonderful to see people of all races, religions and diverse political affiliations working together as one nation,” says Michael Moonesinghe, a British-born Sri Lankan who encourages local entrepreneurship and is the founder of the Facebook group EPFS — an online community of over 50,000 members comprising multi-ethnic Lankans and expatriates working and living in Sri Lanka. The site, which was set up for the selling of furniture, has been propelled over the years into a humanistic aid and charity hub for both humans and animals; owing to its wide reach, the United Nations had requested that it be used for getting disaster relief messages across. The most recent flash floods and landslides the country witnessed saw the group becoming one of the key sites that showed the inter-race/religion unity of Sri Lankan Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and Hindus.

Volunteers of the Nabaviyyah Islamic Youth Organisation in Sri Lanka were active in the Sinhala-dominated areas in the south in the aftermath of the disaster. Their work was widely seen in the social media, along with relief work done by Buddhist monk-led charities.

“Natural disasters are becoming deadly for Sri Lanka. We need more and more civilians involved in disaster relief work and also to pre-empt environmental hazards,” says Moses Akash de Silva, a young Christian pastor of a Colombo-based church who spearheaded relief work as part of a network called United Charities, with the participation of Sri Lankan Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Hindus.

What is in store for Sri Lanka in terms of changing weather patterns is unclear, but what is certain in the immediate present is that the island nation is equipped with unity and brotherhood to face environment-based upheaval, even though the government has yet to get in order a long-term mechanism for disaster preparedness.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2017