While the nation mourns the hundreds of lives lost in the destruction unleashed by Cyclone Ditwah, questions remain whether they perished needlessly when warnings about the impending danger were issued weeks in advance and the authorities did nothing. As the destructive system moves away from Sri Lanka’s shores, the nation is only beginning to grasp the scale of destruction unleashed by the cyclone. But one reality is already clear: the economic cost will be staggering.
The reconstruction of destroyed roads, collapsed bridges, washed-away railway lines, damaged dams, disrupted waterways, and the widespread destruction of private property and factory installations along riverbanks will run into billions of rupees or possibly billions of dollars. A country that has barely staggered out of the worst economic crisis since independence and is still dependent on IMF budget support to keep its fiscal architecture from imploding is now faced with yet another test of survival.
Yet, as these hard numbers begin to emerge, the Government’s response has been strangely muted, as though acknowledging the catastrophe would somehow deepen the crisis it said was now behind us. Even though the Government appears hesitant to say it, Cyclone Ditwah has effectively turned Sri Lanka into a nationwide disaster zone.
In the notable vacuum of leadership, the Opposition Leader has stepped in to do what the Government itself should have done from the outset. Sajith Premadasa moved swiftly to call on the IMF to temporarily suspend loan conditions so that Sri Lanka could prioritise relief, rebuilding, and livelihood restoration. It is a call grounded in reality. The public and corporate sectors, already crushed by unprecedented taxation, simply cannot carry the additional burden of reconstructing destroyed infrastructure. To expect them to do so is not only unrealistic, it is economically suicidal.
Tourism, a key pillar of the post-crisis economy, is poised to suffer a serious blow. The devastation in the hill country has severed road and rail access in multiple districts, with repairs likely to take weeks, if not months. Whether Sri Lanka even has the capacity, material resources, engineering expertise, and fiscal space to restore this infrastructure swiftly is an open and troubling question. With the peak tourist season beginning now, the consequences of Cyclone Ditwah will likely extend well beyond the photographs of inundated homes and broken bridges. A declaration of a national emergency, while necessary to mobilise resources, will also lead prospective tourists to reconsider travel plans.
This is why Sri Lanka must urgently seek international technical and financial assistance – not merely to distribute dry rations, but to rebuild roads, bridges, riverbanks, dams, and transport systems without which the economy cannot function.
But beyond the visible carnage lies a deeper wound, one that strikes at the heart of governance itself: the State failed to act despite weeks of advance warnings. And this failure must now be investigated with the seriousness it deserves.
For nearly two weeks, international weather agencies issued increasingly alarming warnings. AccuWeather on 10 November, BBC Weather on 12 November, Al Jazeera on 14 November – all pointing to imminent flooding, landslides, and extreme rainfall. On 12 November, the Director General of the Meteorology Department went on live television to explain that cyclonic disturbances do not appear suddenly; they build over time. Sri Lanka had more than sufficient notice to activate emergency preparedness protocols. But nothing happened.
On Wednesday (26), just as the cyclone began its deadly sweep, the President was not chairing an emergency meeting, mobilising the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), or coordinating district-level response teams. Instead, he was presiding over a meeting with film producers and distributors, discussing industry concerns while the nation braced for its worst natural disaster in decades.
Three days after the cyclone had already wreaked havoc, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake issued instructions for “immediate, unrestricted relief”. By then, lives had been lost, homes destroyed, villages submerged, and families left without food or clean water. It was a performance of leadership after the moment for leadership had passed.
If Sri Lanka is serious about preventing future catastrophes, it must undertake a rigorous post-mortem. Central to this must be a parliamentary inquiry into the performance of the DMC, an institution created 25 years ago and funded through billions of rupees in State allocations and international donor contributions.
The centre’s website is a disaster in itself: its home page is filled with promotional material rather than real-time data, the ‘emergency warnings’ section is empty, with no trilingual advisories, no coordinated pre-disaster alert system, no information on pre-positioning of rescue teams, medical units, or food supplies.
Even worse, in the immediate aftermath, the DMC resorted – as it has for decades – to beg for basic response equipment. How does a country spend billions on disaster management and still lack basic tools? The National Council for Disaster Management (NCDM), whose Chair and Co-Chair are the President and Prime Minister, is supposed to guide and authorise disaster response under the Disaster Management Act No.13 of 2005. Opposition MPs are included by design to ensure bipartisan oversight and enable national mobilisation in emergencies.
Yet, during the cyclone, the NCDM remained dormant. It met belatedly, issued no proactive directives, and provided no framework for district administrations to act legally and swiftly. Without an emergency gazette, district secretaries could not procure food; health officials could not purchase life-saving medicine; and divisional secretaries could not release funds for anything.
Local administrators privately admitted that they were paralysed by fear. Under the NPP Government’s punitive approach to public administration, no official wants to take the risk of making urgent decisions that could later become grounds for legal action. The end result was that the State was not only unprepared but also immobilised.
A separate line of inquiry must focus on the Mahaweli Authority, the Ceylon Electricity Board, and the Irrigation Department. Despite receiving clear warnings of impending extreme rainfall, these agencies did not initiate staggered water releases from reservoirs in the preceding days. The sudden release of massive volumes of water once the cyclone intensified caused avoidable flooding, deaths, and destruction.
As if State paralysis were not damaging enough, Sri Lanka Tourism issued a statement during the height of the catastrophe on Thursday (27), declaring the country “safe and fully open for travel,” insisting that all major tourist destinations were operating normally “despite seasonal rainfall in some places”. At that very moment, international media were reporting casualty figures, images of submerged towns were circulating globally, and the Government itself was quietly appealing for foreign aid.
Perhaps the most disturbing testimony comes from those directly affected. Families reported receiving nothing – not even the usual rice packet – for more than 48 hours after the floods. Children sitting for the A/L Examinations were notified of postponements only on the morning of their papers. Displaced villagers had no designated shelters to go to. Hospitals ran out of essential supplies. Public servants were sent home without clarity on which services were essential. And three days into the disaster, not a single cooked meal had been provided at State expense.
In past crises, even under flawed administrations, the State machinery moved – boats arrived, soldiers arrived, doctors arrived. This time, citizens were left asking why no one came. Meanwhile, civil society organisations, traditionally quick to mobilise, remained eerily silent during the storm, seemingly unwilling to substitute for a Government that expected them to shoulder its responsibilities.
What makes this catastrophe so painful is not only the loss of life or the destruction of property, it is the realisation that Sri Lanka’s State apparatus counted for nothing when it mattered most. Even more damning is the response of ministers who now accuse others of “politicising the disaster” – the very same individuals who fuelled public unrest during Covid-19 and other natural disasters.
Sri Lanka has survived cyclones before. It has endured floods, landslides, and storms across its history. What is unprecedented is losing dozens of lives over a period spanning several days not because nature was ferocious, but because the State was absent.