Ceylon Today Editorial

High time we learnt a lesson!

30 May 2017

It becomes incredibly uninteresting when one has to repeat everything. When one harps on the same thing over and over again, it becomes tiring and unfortunately, the same can be applied to the persistent flood situation in Sri Lanka. This disaster situation that can easily be labelled now as a naturally occurring incident in Sri Lanka has become more of a bore than something someone should care about. But that particular notion drowned when floods led to landslides which take lives and the government institutions are nowhere near to address the matter.

The increasing nature of unpredictable weather patterns observed around the world, with Sri Lanka being no exception, has led us to this point in time. The entire world is privy to climate change, despite whether world's political leaders believe in it or not, it seems as if climate change is here to stay. As a result, natural disasters have become somewhat of a norm to the country with increased attention being on matters discussing how to address the matter, recovery and protection of resources, avoiding the occurring of natural disasters and of course, avoiding eventual casualties.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2015 Accord de Paris on Climate Change aim just to do that: seek solutions through the wide cooperation and participation of countries around the world. While this is all well and good, signing a piece of paper can only do so much when the ratification itself is merely a media stunt and should only be taken at face value. Out of the 175 nation States that signed and ratified the agreement only a handful of them would be actually funding research into finding solutions to climate change, avoid or reduce the damage caused by natural disasters, establishing new city planning procedures, among other things. And the United States, which has not as of yet ratified or signed the accords is currently being led by an administrator who has no interest in funding research and development and has now paved the way to a prolific independent scientific movement aiming to address matters of science, which are majorly ignored by their State.

In Sri Lanka, we being one of the many countries which had signed accords, we do little to absolute nothing when it comes to addressing these matters. Hence, we see almost the entire island submerging under flood water and landslides at least twice a year. It is in this context, adding insult to injury the Ministry of Disaster Management admitted that it was not prepared to face this catastrophe. The subject minister himself, had left the country for an international seminar on climate change, the day before the rains started and has not returned as of yet. We hope that it is not just us who have noticed the irony of this situation.

The minister left, it rained for two days straight, floods came in several parts of the country and it was then only the landslides started occurring. In exactly 24 hours the number of casualties from both floods and landslides rose above the hundredth mark and all the ministry could do was plead guilty and wave the white flag. Good for the minister being MIA, all the blame could be put on the ministerial secretaries!

The pattern was obvious. Unfortunately the weather forecast that had predicted heavy rain at the end of this month was ignored by the populace and, it seems, by the relevant government institutions. We should have seen this as a pattern that Sri Lanka, over the last few years, has suffered from rain causing flooding with the situation worsening every year. Last year we should have learned our lesson, yet we are still in a scenario as if we are responding for the first time!