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Funding gap stretches wide at the scene of Sri Lanka’s cyclone tragedy
Vulnerable victims of climate disasters can’t depend on the charity of other nations but need a loss and damage fund to support them.
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A three-storey house was obliterated by a landslide triggered by Cyclone Ditwah in November 2025 and took two lives.
ST PHOTO: AZIM AZMAN
SRI LANKA - One of the clearest memories I have of my first disaster reporting trip to Sri Lanka last December is the image of a massive mound of dirt in the nation’s cyclone-stricken Badulla district.
The pile of debris, with concrete shards still buried in the soil, was all that remained of a three-storey house that had been obliterated by a landslide triggered by Cyclone Ditwah the previous month. I was later told that a mother and son died with the collapse of the house.


