NUWARA ELIYA: In the fog-shrouded mountains of Sri Lanka’s tea region, rescuers were still pulling bodies out of reddish-brown mud on Tuesday after last week’s cyclone, the island’s worst natural disaster in decades.
According to disaster officials, at least 465 people died and another 366 were missing.
The Sri Lanka Air Force has been combing the landscape affected by the landslides, surveying the damage and transporting food and other essential supplies to stranded residents. Although the rain has stopped, the recovery is just beginning.
As the first foreign media journalist to join a relief mission in the tea-producing region, photographer Ishara Kodikara saw a swath of the country destroyed after landslides crushed everything in their path, including roads and the vehicles traveling on them.
The roofs of some houses protruded from the mud, while the rest of the buildings were swallowed by the torrents of land unleashed by Cyclone Ditwah.
Jagged tears in the mountainsides revealed expanses of disturbed earth, with a few patches of lush vegetation still clinging nearby in stark contrast. There were no signs of human life in the shattered landscape.
In the central area of Welimada, now inaccessible to heavy vehicles, rescuers on Monday pulled 11 bodies from the mud and asked for help to search for dozens more.
In some places, entire slopes have been cut away, leaving ocher wounds that cut through the dense vegetation of the plantations.
The full extent of the damage to tea plantations, factories and tea pickers is still unclear, but local media reported that the industry has been hit hard. What were once thick, unbroken tea covers are now wide channels of mud and debris.
Published in Dawn, December 3, 2025
