Sri Lanka's president mourned the island's "devastating loss" Wednesday as the death toll from three days of torrential rain and landslides rose to 37, with more than 150 missing and rescuers still pulling bodies from the mud. President Maithripala Sirisena flew to a central tea-growing area where images taken from a helicopter showed floodwaters engulfing entire villages and forested hills deluged with reddish mud. "The loss is devastating," the president posted on Twitter.
The Disaster Management Centre's updated toll came after bodies were pulled out of the mud in the central village of Aranayake and neighbouring Bulathkohupitiya. "A total of 37 people have been killed, 28 wounded... in weather-related incidents in the past three days," DMC spokesman Pradeep Kodippili said. The president met with people who had lost their loved ones as well as seen their homes destroyed, an official who travelled with him told AFP.
Sirisena has ordered troops to help evacuate people living on slopes or in flood-hit areas, while the navy and the air force have also been called in to help with relief operations. In the area worst hit by landslides, 134 people were still unaccounted for. "We have got complaints from relatives about their loved ones missing," a police officer in the area told AFP by telephone. In total 155 people are still missing.